Phoenix, AZ: March 18-20, 2023 - Life in the Desert

Four years ago (how can it have been that long?!) my family and I went to the Phoenix area for a few days because we were able to trade our week in the timeshare my parents own for one out in Arizona.  We did this in the colder months so that we'd be there for the more pleasant weather, and the same thinking guided this trip too.

My parents and I were one contingent, and we met up with the Beth+ contingent later on in the first day.  However, someone had found this weird little thing we had to go to out away from Phoenix in the middle of nowhere called the Biosphere:

Actually, technically, this one is known as the Biosphere 2.

So it's this experiment from the 80s, I think to test possible living conditions on other planets, to see if eight people could live in a sustained ecosystem entirely within this shelter.  Turns out they couldn't!  Not because they went crazy and murdered each other, as one would expect, but actually because of lack of calories.  What they ate was all plants grown inside, and apparently that's not enough to sustain human life!

It got so bad that at one point, despite it having a 360° view of the outside world, no one could go up to the library area because climbing the ladder up there took too much work.

So now this crazy place lives on as a tourist attraction, and it is actually pretty neat:

Inside, there is a tropical rainforest:

And an indoor ocean!

Here's the picturesque surrounding landscape:

So it was very cool to see, but very odd!

Next, we checked off yet another National Park, at my insistence: Saguaro!

We'd seen plenty of these cacti on trip #1, but not visited the actual National Park itself.  Was glad we did!  There was a section with petroglyphs, and a nice overlook:

We returned up to Phoenix to meet up with cohort #2 and have dinner and turn in for the night.  The next day, we went to OdySea, an aquarium in the city:

I am always up for a good aquarium, and this one did not disappoint:

There was a great like tank slash show where the seating rotated around to five different tanks with a voiceover describing each one:

Some other excellent tanks:

The OdySea was in a great little shopping area, where we stopped for a coffee before heading out:

We went to a butterfly house next:

Then lunch:

We took a respite at the timeshare before an evening hike up in the Cave Creek area.  A vast landscape:

turned to what seemed to be a dry creekbed:

which eventually led to an actual creek:

which led ultimately to a waterfall!

My brief visit then ended here, with an early drive to the airport the next morning and an early flight out.  I had only this brief window to travel with my still-accruing PTO at the new job.

But it was great to go back!