Last night, I stepped outside my motel room here in Tempe, AZ, hoping to see if any clouds had seeped in from wherever clouds are created. Because it certainly isn’t here. This may be the driest place that 4 million people have managed to successfully exist, and thrive. And (until the bust), over 500 people were coming every day to stay. Anyway, I looked up, and saw a blank. Meaning, nothing. No clouds, no stars, just a vague simulacrum of night. Phoenix has gotten so big, and so bright, that it has now obliterated the actual night.
There really shouldn’t be any people here. The last ones who tried, the Hohokam, succumbed to drought long before the Europeans got here. They managed to build 135 miles of canals to harness a little seasonal stream, the Salt River, which meanders through the desert. But for over 400 years, no one cared about this place. It was set in a depression, protected by several plateaus along the North, East, and South, which kept weather systems at bay, and funneled hot, dry winds across the sand.
Then a Civil War vet, Jacob Swilling, arrived on the heels of the Army, who were in the area trying to quell Navajo and Apache uprisings. He saw the canals, and had a vision of verdant farmland. The rest is history. Or, to me, mystery. Why this failed agricultural venture ever morphed into the tenth largest US metropolis is beyond my capacity to imagine.
It’s pleasant enough now, in late November, with the highs around 75-80, and the sun not so searing. But come late April, triple digits are the rule, and to be outside, in the sun, is to risk death, not just crinkled skin and sunburn.
The entire place is covered by human built environments, intended for full time, year round, indoor use. There is no nature here, no place to rest and contemplate organic chaos. All is order, rigid, right angled. Streets are wide six lane boulevards, set a mile apart, covering the valley floor. Some run north/south; some run east/west. But none meander, like a river might.
So I’m here for an Ironman, and these poses several problems for the organizers. First, where to swim? Well, someone dammed the Salt River in Tempe, at least about two miles worth of it, so there is “Tempe Town Lake”. I shudder to think what kind of run off collects here from the infrequent rains each winter. I can see (or, actually, not see) the effects of the desert sand and the algae in the water – my fingers become almost invisible when they cut through the water in front of me.
Next, the bike – where to find a sufficiently long stretch of road which won’t interfere with the free flow of traffic and commerce. Luckily (for us, not for them), Uncle Sam created the Salt River-Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (they’re called “reservations” in other places.) Our route runs first along the edge of this land, then right through it, long enough to get an 18.5 mile out and back route, which, multiplied three times, gives the required 112 miles.
And the run follows the paths along the lake, cutting under the freeway and through an actual park with grass and trees, and up one lone hill. We circle three times through a course which consists of three loops (nine in total), and goes over three bridges. I guess it’s better than circling a parking lot 26 times.
But as I run, I’ll be in the shadow of not only the Arizona State University Sun Devils’ football stadium, but also a number of gleaming post modern towers named for suspect corporations: KPMG, US Airways, and the like. A light rail line station has recently opened right next to the transition zone, and our little collection of 2200 bikes and expo tents is dwarfed by the gleaming towers, standing incongruously close to, and making one wonder about, an old grain silo which the city fathers have kept as an historic landmark.
All this out of place construction dredges up in me a speculation as to how far we’ve advanced from dwelling in caves. For now, lacking sufficient caves for our own civilization, we are making our own, and stacking them one on top of the other; connecting them with caves-on-wheels; and flying over them in tubular levitating caves. In a place with no natural wonders, the ones we make are not worth visiting.