Experimental Communities…and the Cities that we Really Built

Aloha all,

in the last two weeks we visited three types of experimental communities:

Biosphere 2 -  the largest artificial biosphere in the world

Taliesin West - Frank Lloyd Wright’s ‘desert laboratory’ and

Arcosanti - a still active experimental community by Paolo Soleri

Biosphere 2 outside of Tucson, AZ

Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West

Paolo Soleri's 'Arcosanti'

All three were visionary projects that were very successful on some level. But they all can be described as failures, too. They did not fundamentally change the way we build houses and plan cities, as we could tell by visiting three cities that we humans actually built: Tucson, Phoenix and Las Vegas are all prime examples of urban sprawl. Don't get me wrong, we enjoyed these cities and there is plenty to do there, but it's not what the Frank Lloyd Wright or Paolo Soleri or the designers of the Biosphere envisioned our future cities to look like. 

These cities are very different from the cute small towns described in the last blog post. There is no question that Joy preferred the small towns, but Sandra and I are equally intrigued by the variety of options only big cities can offer: Besides the experimental communities mentioned above, we also saw a fun musical, toured a very unusual state capitol, stayed at a brewery, went to a canal festival, hiked in a suburban national park, walked through a town that once was 70 feet under water and attended a fake concert by U2. 

Downtown Tucson viewed from 'A-Mountain'

Tucson was the first city we came to. Yes, it is a sprawling mess of subdivisions, shopping malls and mobile home & RV parks. But we actually stayed a night in one of the many huge RV parks and it was somewhat enticing: Fairly affordable, peaceful and lots of amenities and activities. We can see why many snowbirds spend the winter here. I think once we saw everything there is to see in America, we’ll be ready to move into one of those RV communities and play pickleball all winter.

One of many weird cacti
at the Saguaro National Park
on the outskirts of Tucson

Fortunately, they set aside two areas outside of Tucson for the Saguaro National Park before the sprawling development takes down the last of these magnificent cacti. While hiking, we love looking for the biggest, the weirdest or the most perfect cactus: There are plenty of saguaros with arms growing out of arms, but we are still looking for one growing an arm out of an arm that grows out of an arm. Inspired by our friend Russell, we are now also looking for that “perfect cactus”, the one that looks like the emoji. Then there are crested saguaros, which are deformed by a virus, but can be particularly beautiful.

Crested saguaro 

Downtown Tucson is actually quite attractive once you made it through the sprawl.  We had met Mauro, a local historian, at the Tubac Presidio State Park and booked a private walking tour with him. He is the best tour guide in all of Tucson. We say that confidently, even though we don’t know any other tour guides there. If you are ever in Tucson, we highly recommend taking a tour with him to learn about the town’s history from the earliest beginnings to the effects of the more recent, so-called ‘urban renewal’. As a historian, Mauro is no fan of urban renewal. But even after learning about the social injustices, we still liked downtown Tucson.

With Russell, Talia and Troy
at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

The next day we met with our ex-Maui Ultimate friend Russell, his lovely wife Talia and their very cute son Troy. We spent the day at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum together, which had been highly recommended by anybody we had talked to. We really enjoyed seeing and catching up with Russell, Talia and Troy. The desert museum not so much, to be honest. Opposite to popular believe, I don't have to like everything. We were not impressed by the almost hummingbirdless hummingbird house or the aviary with five pigeons. They also have a prairie dog town with exactly zero prairie dogs. But Troy was awesome!

The Biosphere 2 was one of the most intriguing places we have ever visited. In case you don’t know what that is: It’s has been described as the most important scientific experiment since JFK’s call to send a man to the moon. It has also been described as a scam, a publicity stunt and a failure. We found Biosphere 2 fascinating, regardless of that contradiction; or maybe because of it.

One of the biomes at Biosphere 2

Biosphere 1 is our planet earth. Biosphere 2 was an experiment to build a sealed smaller version of earth to test how humans might be able to sustain themselves, for example if we were to screw up Biosphere 1 or if we wanted to colonize another planet. This had been done before, but never anywhere close to this scale. The interior of the mostly glass dome of Biosphere 2 is over three acres (almost 13,000 square meters!), complete with a rain forest, a mangrove wetland, an ocean with live coral, a desert, a savannah and enough farm land to feed everyone inside. In the original experiment, from 1991 to 1993, Biosphere 2 was sealed for two years with eight chosen inhabitants. One of the issues they discovered was that the oxygen levels dropped to the point where the inhabitants were constantly tired. Instead of publicly acknowledging this discovery, they pumped oxygen into the supposedly sealed system. When that became public, they lost a lot of credibility with many in the scientific community. I think they are still struggling with that, even though they apparently do serious science now.

'The Ocean' at Biosphere 2

Originally, it was envisioned that crews would take turns living in Biosphere 2 over a 100 year span, but that never happened. Just half a year into the second experiment, it was abruptly stopped, because humans are idiots. It wasn’t just because Steve Bannon (yes, THAT Steve Bannon) joined the management. There was fighting on the inside and on the outside. Eventually, it was decided that the research would continue, but the idea of humans living in a closed system was dropped. Columbia University took over for a few years and now the University of Arizona owns and manages Biosphere 2. 

The library in Biosphere 2

We joined a guided history tour through the living quarters of the original Biospherians, we did a long audio tour through the various biomes and we talked to several people at Biosphere 2. We were so intrigued that we also watched a documentary about it, but we are still not sure whether we rather agree with the assessment that this was (or even still is) a great science experiment or whether it was publicity stunt and a failure. One thing is for sure: It’s different from any other place we have ever visited anywhere.

On our way to the Phoenix metro area, we stayed at Picacho Peak State Park. We did a fun, but steep hike. We did not make it to the peak, but we met a nice fellow RVer and had an engaging conversation over dinner with him. 

We made it up this section,
but not to Picacho Peak

We also stopped at another Pueblo Indian ruin called Casa Grande.
As the name suggests, it's a big house, now covered by a bigger roof

Phoenix is the capital of Arizona, so of course we had to visit the Arizona State Capitol, or as we like to call it: Number 35. This one is different from the 34 other state capitols we have toured before. The capitol building is now actually a museum. Instead of building a new capitol when they ran out of space, they first built an annex and then two separate buildings for the senate and the house of representatives and finally a tower for the executive branch. It is a bit confusing and not the most impressive state capitol building(s), but it still kept us entertained for almost a full day.

The Arizona Capitol buildings 

The Phoenix metro area has grown so much that it includes several other cities.  At the Mesa Arts Center we saw the very fun “Come From Away” musical. It’s about the 38 planes that landed in Gander, Newfoundland on 9/11, instantly doubling the population of this small town. We spent an afternoon and evening in Old Town Scottsdale. It’s a nice mix of old and new; some historic buildings, lots of bars and restaurants, a nice canal promenade and a surprising number of self driving cars circling around the neighborhood. During dinner in Old Town Scottsdale, we overheard the neighbor table talking about a fire and drone show. Unknowingly, we had timed our visit perfectly with the Canal Convergence festival. 

Fire show at the Canal Convergence festival 
in Old Town Scottsdale

On our multiple tours of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings throughout the country, we kept hearing about Taliesin in Wisconsin and Taliesin West in Arizona. Since 1938 Taliesin West was the winter home, studio and ‘desert laboratory’ of Frank Lloyd Wright. Even after his death in 1959, Taliesin West continued as a studio, school and workshop for architecture students until 2019. While we missed that part of the history, it enabled us to join a new kind of tour they now offer at Taliesin West: Exploring the “Shelters in the Desert” where students built structures to live in while studying at Taliesin West.

One of the "Shelters in the Desert',
built by a student at Taliesin West

We were always impressed by the timeless beauty of almost all FLW buildings. But we had also heard many stories how difficult it must have been to deal with him personally. We were pleasantly surprised to hear that apparently he showed a different side to the students who stayed at Taliesin West. It seems to have been a fun, inspiring atmosphere and many students have fond memories of their time in the desert with Frank Lloyd Wright. We have fond memories of our visit there, too.

Frank Lloyd Wright's studio at Taliesin West

Paolo Soleri was one of those young students who attended Wrights school at Taliesin West. He went on to become a famous architect and urban planner himself. His masterpiece is the experimental community “Arcosanti”. Lucky for us, he built that on our route and even luckier, one of the other guests on the Taliesin tour told us about it. 

The experimental community of Arcosanti 

Arcosanti was envisioned to become a community for 5,000 residents and Soleri wanted it to be designed around the need of humans, not around the need of cars. This was pretty progressive stuff in 1970.

The foundry where the 'Arcosanti Bells' are made

54 years later, Arcosanti is still active. But instead of 5,000 residents, they have less than 50. And this time, we can’t even blame Steve Bannon. They have a business making and selling handcrafted bells. Every resident must have a job at Arcosanti. In return, they get to live in this unique, experimental town for just $300 rent per month .This is not a hippie commune, but it’s nice to see there are places where not everything revolved around money. I think I’d move here before I live in Biosphere 3 or in one of the desert shelters at Taliesin West.

The Montezuma Castle,
which was a multifamily home 

The Montezuma Castle is not a castle and the Montezuma Well is not a well. Neither one have anything to do with Montezuma, but even with those misnomers, they make for a beautiful and interesting National Monument. 

The Montezuma Well, which is a spring

Sedona was our last highlight in Arizona. We did a very nice hike through the red rocks and had a nice lunch in town. What a beautiful part of the country, we’ve put it on the list of potential places to move to when Haleakala erupts.

Great hike around the red rocks of Sedona

Then it was time to say ‘a hui hou’ to Joy. She is winterized and parked in storage, but we promised her to come back next spring. We are now at “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. For those not familiar with this American classic: Uncle Tommy is a good friend from Maui Ultimate, who moved to Las Vegas last year. 

Since we are staying with Thomas, we thought it was only appropriate to go to St. Thomas with him. That’s a town that we heard about at the Lake Mead NRA. St. Thomas got flooded when Hoover Dam was built. For a while, it was 70 feet under water. With the recent historic low water levels in Lake Mead, the town has since re-emerged. Only foundations remain, but it was interesting to walk around and learn about the town’s history. Surprisingly, it’s several miles away from the water by now.

The re-emerged ruins of St. Thomas

More or less by coincidence, we came through the ‘Valley of Fire’ on the way to St. Thomas. Tommy drove, but for Joy, this would have been a homecoming: Our very first night on the road with Joy in 2018 was at the Valley of Fire campground. Back then, it was so hot that we could not do much hiking, this time it was nice and cool and we were able to do a fun hike. What beautiful rock formations! 

Hike at the Valley Of Fire

I'm no geologist, but I think the scientific
 term for these are "pretty rocks"

After hearing about “The Sphere” for a year now, we caved yesterday and wanted to find out what the fuss is all about. It sounded like a giant IMAX theater, so I was hesitant to pay $100 to see a film. But I guess for 2.3 billion dollars (!) you get more than just a movie theater. The Sphere holds almost 20,000 people and the screen is the largest in the world: 580,000 square feet, 54,000 square meters! 

U2 performing in front of Las Vegas, 
except that neither one is real

When the Sphere opened last year, U2 opened the venue with a 40 night residency show. They made a movie from that which is now shown several times a week. The quality of the image is ridiculously good. It really looked like Bono was walking on stage, talking and singing to us. I truly believe if they wanted to, they could fool me (and up to 19,999 others) by claiming to have a band perform live when in fact we are just watching a screen. Scary new world, but pretty cool. 

At least four humans were really there.
Not so sure about Bono.

Today, we still hope to play a round of golf with Tommy and then see our friend Barbara, who happens to be in town, too. Tomorrow, we fly home to Maui…with a two hour layover in Denver (too short to see our hanai family), a 22 hour layover in London (not enough time to see King Charles) and a one month layover in Germany (enough time to see our families). Yes, we realize this is not the shortest route to Maui. But these might be the cheapest flights we have booked and we’ll still make it back to our beloved, recovering island before the end of the year.

And that’s the news from Lake Vegas, where all the visions for the future were strong, all the spheres are good looking and all the cities offer more attractions than average.

Chris & Sandra

14 Weird and Wonderful Places North of the Border

Aloha all,

when the Spaniards first came to what is now Southern Arizona and New Mexico, they were looking for the fabled “Seven Cities of Gold”. They found none.

When we came here, almost 500 years later, we weren’t looking for anything in particular, but we found seven funky towns and seven more weird and wonderful places, all just north of the border. We also ventured to a town south of the border. That was surprisingly pleasant, but neither weird nor wonderful.

Some places were weird enough that we
would have fit in better with this instead of Joy

I know that not everybody has the time to read a long blog post. So here is a list of the 14 weird and wonderful places we saw in the past two weeks. Depending on your level of interest, this might make you want to read the rest or confirm that it’s ok to skip to the pictures and move on with your day:

Gila Wilderness, America’s first Wilderness

City of Rocks, which looks like a city built of rocks

Faywood Hotsprings, a desert oasis

Silver City, where Main Street became “The Big Ditch”

Shakespeare Ghost Town, kept alive by one family

Chiracahua NM, a remote version of Bryce Canyon

Douglas, the most surprising place to find hundreds of ‘Last Suppers’

Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area, where even we became birders

Bisbee, the town saved by hippies

Coronado National Memorial, which has little to do with Coronado

Tombstone, ‘The town too tough to die.’

Kartchner Caverns, the most ‘living’ cave we know

Tumacacori & Tubac, Spanish settlements with a mixed legacy

Titan Missile Museum - one brown sign and we were back in the Cold War

One hundred years ago, in 1924, the Gila Wilderness became the first area in America to be designated as a wilderness. We only scratched the surface of this vast area, mostly untouched by modern civilization. Ironically, the Gila Wilderness was very much inhabited by native tribes centuries ago. The Gila Cliff Dwellings rival those of Mesa Verde. We went to the tamest part of the wilderness because, to be honest, we prefer easy strolls to cliff dwellings and soaking in natural hot springs over weeklong expeditions into the real wilderness.

Gila Cliff Dwellings

Natural hot springs in the Gila Wilderness

The City of Rocks is very aptly named. Created by a big volcanic eruption about 35 million years ago, cracks in the rock eroded in a pattern very similar to streets in a city. Walking through the rock formations is not unlike walking through the canyons formed by skyscrapers in Manhattan. It’s just not as crowded and you can camp at the edge of the city.

Our campsite at the City of Rocks

We went to the Faywood Hotsprings, even though we knew we would not like it as much as our beloved hot springs in Truth or Consequences. But soaking in hot water under the bright stars of the New Mexico desert is still pretty fabulous, even if there is no hammock in the pool. Since it’s clothing optional, you probably appreciate that there are no pictures from there.

You can probably guess what led to the founding of Silver City. Like most mining towns, it was not well planned, but basically became a boom town overnight when silver was discovered. In their haste to build a city for the miners, they forgot to consult with my brother. As a hydrologist, he could have warned them, that their main street was right in the way of a storm water runoff, especially if you deforest the mountains around the town. They fought the erosion for a while, but after about 30 years, Mother Nature won and turned their Main Street into the now 55 feet deep ‘Big Ditch’ running through the middle of town. 

1902 photo of Main Street in Silver City.
Today, the Big Ditch is a green city park.

Over the years, Silver City embraced the unusual feature. The first word that came to my mind to describe Silver City today is ‘funky’. Maybe the funkiest place we had been to until we came to Bisbee the following week.

Funky, weird and colorful Silver City, NM

The “Shakespeare Ghost Town” is right outside of Lordsburg, which from our brief experience is well on the way to become a ghost town as well. Shakespeare had a very colorful history under several different names; with several mining booms and just as many busts. For almost a century, it is now being preserved mostly by one family. You have to applaud the dedication and enthusiasm: The same guy who keeps the historic buildings from falling down is also the tour guide seven days a week. And not only did he give us a three hour long tour, even though nobody else showed up, but we got to spend the night right outside the gates of the ghost town.

The Shakespeare Ghost Town

We had been to Chiracahua National Monument 18 years ago, so you would think we knew what to expect, but we were still amazed by this gem of a park. After our first hike through the amazing rock formations, we extended our stay at the campground and did another longer hike the next day. It very much reminds me of Bryce Canyon. 

Chiracahua National Monument,
Bryce Canyon's distant cousin

The sandstone formations at Bryce have fancier colors, but the “tuff” rock at Chiricahua makes even more amazing shapes and will probably last longer, too. We might have to come back in another 18 years to verify that.

Weird & Wonderful
rock formations
at Chiracahua

The border town of Douglas has seen better days. It’s not a ghost town, but when you walk into the Gadsen Hotel, it’s pretty clear that this used to be a different kind of city. 

Staircase at the somewhat out of place
Gadsen Hotel in Douglas

Today, you would not expect a grandiose hotel like The Gadsen in Douglas, neither would I have expected to see hundreds of versions of “The Last Supper” here. They have a very fun little museum that collects a wide variety of The Last Supper, any material, any interpretation and from anywhere in the world. They have hundreds of works on display and thousands more in the collection. Needless to say that their collection now also includes a picture of the 2017 winner of the Halloween costume contest in Lahaina.

The Last Slippers at the Last Supper Museum

Not all renditions are as authentic as
"Leonardo's Workshop" at Lahaina's Halloween

From Douglas, we took a short stroll to Aqua Prieta on the Mexican side for lunch. This was the most casual of our four short excursions into Mexico so far. Last time we crossed the Mexican border in El Paso and it was a bit scary. But here, it was very easy and not scary at all. In fact, we crossed the border with several unaccompanied school kids that were probably 7 or 8 years old. There was not even the threat of ending up in a tourist trap for lunch. Since there are hardly any tourists in Douglas or in Aqua Prieta, they don’t bother setting up any traps. But even though the restaurant we ate at was definitely a place for locals, to be honest, the Mexican food there was not that great. 

Somehow, the border is a little friendlier
between Douglas and Aqua Prieta

We are no birders, but when we heard that the sandhill cranes had arrived at the Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area and that they allow overnight parking, we went to check it out. There were probably about 10,000 sandhill cranes and hundreds of yellow-headed blackbirds flew in formation over our heads. It was quite the spectacle, even for not-so-serious birders.

Our first stop in Arizona was the unique, weird and wonderful town of Bisbee. Copper mining was the big business here. Or, even better: Catering to the copper miners. Supposedly, the richest man in town was a Swiss immigrant who ran the local brewery, as we learned on our tour of the historic Muheim House. 

Open copper mine pit in Bisbee, Arizona

We were impressed how friendly our tour guide was (since nobody else showed up that day we got another private three hour tour). But over the next two days, we found out that everybody in Bisbee is that nice, residents and fellow visitors alike. If you don’t believe me, just go to the local brewery and sit at the bar for a while. 

Our new Bisbee friends

Bisbee really is a special kind of town, which might be explained by its history: When the copper boom ended and the town was on the decline, until hippies and artists moved in. Instead of a depressed ghost town, Bisbee became a very artsy and now touristy town with a very lively, friendly atmosphere….and even funkier than Silver City.

Part of the "Bisbee 1,000",
a trail with over 1000 steps 
through the fun town of Bisbee

The Coronado National Memorial is a park along the Arizona/Mexico border that is supposed to memorialize the Coronado Expedition from 1540-42. That’s when around 1,000 men traveled about 4,000 miles from Mexico through the American Southwest to claim the fabled “Seven Cities of Gold” for the Spanish crown. This was a much larger undertaking than the Lewis & Clark Expedition, but the Coronado expedition is much less known since they never found any of the cities of gold. To be honest, the exhibits on the expedition were rather disappointing and chances are that Coronado never even came through this area at all. But two hikes made the trip to this park well worth it: One short hike to a 600 foot deep cave where, to our surprise, we were allowed to go spelunking on our own. Afterwards we did a longer hike to the mountains along the border with a beautiful view into Mexico.

Hobby Spelunker at Coronado Cave

Tombstone claims to be “the town too tough to die”. It’s the quintessential wild west town. It must have been a pretty tough town in the early days as a territory in the late 1800’s,. They had notorious gunfights, a high stakes poker game that lasted over 8 years, mining booms & busts, fires, Indian attacks, prostitution, hangings…you get the picture if you have ever seen a western. Today, it’s a cute tourist town and feels more like a movie set than a town. 

The Wild West in Tombstone

One does not dress like the others....

The Kratchner Caverns are the ‘most living’ caves we have ever visited. That’s because they were discovered only 50 years ago and they were discovered by two guys who were more interested in preservation than in maximizing their profits. The caverns were made into show caves, but under much stricter rules than we have seen in other caves. Visitors go through multiple air locks, get sprayed with mist and are not even allowed to bring in cell phones. All that is supposed to help that the formations are still growing.To be honest, I think the cell phone rule is more to ensure that the guests pay attention and enjoy the moment, rather than taking 100 pictures, which I definitely would have done.

Photography was not allowed in the Kartchner Caverns,
so you'll have to believe us that the formations
were just as pretty as this sunset in Tombstone

Tumacacori National Historical Park preserves one of the settlements in Southern Arizona that was transformed by the arrival of Spanish missionaries. The legacy of this transformation is a mixed bag: Compared to other places we have visited, the natives were treated somewhat better. Many native Americans seem to have embraced the modern technologies and even the new religious believes somewhat voluntarily, especially during the first years, when Jesuit priests were in charge of the missions. But the missionaries still brought European diseases and arrogantly replaced cultural traditions. And things got even worse when the Jesuits were replaced themselves, basically for being to nice to the natives and not nice enough to the Spanish king.

Catholic mission church in Tumacacori

Just a little further north, the Tubac Presidio was a Spanish fort that became the first European Settlement in what is now Arizona. We ended up talking to one of the curators at the historical site for hours, about the history of the area, the election and life in general. They also allowed us to overnight at the park and recommended a super fun Mexican restaurant. The town of Tubac seems to be an art mecca. There are galleries, studios and public art displays everywhere. We stayed a little longer the next day to walk around town, even though we were more interested in food than art.

1 of 1,000 artsy places in Tubac

Yesterday, we were on our way to see yet another mission, but then there was a brown sign on the side of the road. Those always get our attention. This one was for the Titan Missile Museum and within a matter of minutes we changed our plans from mission to missile. Instead of learning more about the missions when this area was still under Spanish rule in the 1600’s and 1700’s, we learned more about the missiles from the Cold War from the 1960’s to 1980’s.

Control center at the Titan Missile silo,
the room where it could have happened,

There were 54 Titan II missiles throughout the United States, each capable of destroying 2,300 square kilometers up to 10,000 km away, just enough to reach Moscow. This missile launch site south of Tucson is the only one from the Titan II sites that was made into a museum. There are other sites from the Minuteman Missile program that makes the Titan II look like child’s play. The amount of effort, money and technology that was put into a system that was designed so that it never needs to be used is astounding. No matter how you feel about the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction, it was fascinating to see one of the sites where the unthinkable was always thought of.

Decommissioned Titan II Missile

After the weird and wonderful small towns along the border, we are now heading to the bigger cities of Tucson, Phoenix and then Las Vegas. But let’s see whether there are any other brown signs along the way.

And that’s the news from Lake North-of-the-Border, where all the miners were strong, not all the history was good looking; and all the places are funkier than average.

Aloha,

Chris & Sandra