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!

Cave City, KY: January 17, 2022 - Mammoth Cave

I took a notion to see Kentucky's only National Park, which I had thus far neglected to do in all my nearly ten years in this state, on MLK day back in January.  It just felt like a fun thing to do with the day off.

It also occurred to me that, despite the day being cold and indeed snowy, a cave tour was the perfect thing, since the 55-ish degree interior would feel practically balmy compared to the weather outside.  With the reports of road conditions being good enough, I set off in the early afternoon.  Because of the length of the drive and the time change, the tour that made the most sense for the day time-wise was also the shorter, mass-market tour called the Frozen Niagara tour, which the guide reminded us a number of times was the "shortest tour of the longest cave in the world".  The subtle implication being: we should all come back and do another one.

We started up at the visitors center:

before boarding the school bus that took us to the entrance.  Inside, as you might expect, looked like a cave:

We soon arrived at the large room containing the Frozen Niagara:

which, as the guide explained, was really the only major area of the entire cave system which was "wet", or had active water movement in it, forming things like stalagmites and stalactites.  Most of the cave is dry and dusty, with none of these sorts of formations.  So even though this was a short tour, we really did see the major attraction.

We went a bit further, to the edge of the "dry" section, to see names carved into the walls:

the dates, rest assured, are from the nineteen twenties, not the current decade.

Back at the Frozen Niagara, we were allowed to descend the stairs to get an up close view of it if we wished:

then it was back outside.  It had been mentioned during the tour that the natural entrance was a short walk from the visitor center, so when we returned, I went and saw it:

before heading back north.

Pierre, Wall, and Philip, SD: August 2-3, 2021 - The Badlands

I got lost in the Badlands when I was 16.  It was me and that same church youth group I mentioned in the last post.  I only have vague memories of it, but we took a trail up into the mountainous landforms that make up that park and must have gotten off the trail or something, because before we knew it, we were wandering around trying to find a safe passage down, backtracking at points, and navigating hazards to get to safety.

Fifteen years later, I returned, but not until we'd visited the great tourist draw of the area, Wall Drug, which I also saw with that youth group all that time ago.  I only kind of remember the dinosaur, though:

And didn't remember at all the interior of Wall Drug:

Except for one place, which I only remember because of a photo:

I'm pretty sure that's the same Jackalope.

With Wall Drug done, we made our way to the final National Park on this Dakotas trip, the titular Badlands.  We did the scenic loop, much like Teddy Roosevelt.  Actually, there was a lot about this that felt similar to T.R.  It's not exactly the same; you can easily tell it's a different area, but there are clear similarities.  If Teddy Roosevelt is Mario, Badlands is Luigi.

Anyway, here's what it looked like:

A little later, we came upon the yellow mounds:

And a shot of, again, how vast this landscape is:

It just stretches into forever.

Another overlook, the Homestead Overlook, showed the edge of the Badlands, and really emphasizes the infinite nature of this park's views:

Much like Teddy Roosevelt, pictures don't quite do it justice.  It's a place you have to actually be to fully experience.  Which in a way, I'm grateful for.  In a time where one can pull up photos or Google street views of just about anywhere on Earth, it might occur to you to ask, "what's the point of travel?  Why take all that time and money to actually go somewhere if I can see it from the comfort of my computer screen or phone?"  And places like this, if nowhere else, are the answer to that question.

We continued through the Badlands, stopping at the visitor center and doing a couple short hikes, but the temperature got up to 95 degrees, and given the landscape, it felt a bit like the Sahara, so we didn't explore it too extensively.  

Instead, we decided it was getting to be time for lunch, and the nearest town with any food to speak of was a place called Philip.  Philip was up a small highway, away from the interstate, and looked exactly like you might expect a tiny middle-of-nowhere South Dakota town to look:

We continued to go away from I-90, the only Interstate in South Dakota, which bisects the state east-to-west, so that we could see the sunflower fields along highway 34:

That was well worth it.  Those things, again, were endless.

We arrived in Pierre around dinner time, and too late to do any of the sightseeing that was on our docket, so we had dinner and turned in.  The plan for next morning was really just one major destination: the Capitol building.

This one is a much more traditional building, with an architectural style more in line with most other state Capitols.  I like the color scheme, too.  Inside is what you might expect:

But the dome/rotunda area I found particularly impressive:

And then the Senate and House chambers:

Which were very hot, as forewarned by the guards at the door.  On the 4th floor, the heat can get pretty stuffy.  That's why, they say, they are only in session in the winter.

That's the thing about both of these states.  Oppressively hot right now, but in the winter, you get temperatures way into the negatives and snow that shuts down interstates.  With no body of water to regulate its weather, the Dakotas are a land of extremes.

With the Capitol done, we packed up and headed east from Pierre, toward our final destination.