First Impressions of Arizona

It seems that in the blink of an eye, we have already been in Arizona for a month and a half. If we didn’t have 7 Sundays at church to prove how much time has passed here, we wouldn’t believe it’s already been that long. Between getting situated, Heather travelling back and forth between here and Salt Lake for work, and PA school consuming Eric’s life, we haven’t taken the time to jot down our first impressions of Phoenix. So we’re going to try to condense the past 7 weeks into a single entry.

After a 2 day excursion from SLC to Phoenix (complete with an overnight sketchy motel stay where Eric physically got trapped in the bathroom because the door was jammed), we used our remaining strength and willpower to unpack the moving van. After we got everything shoved into our new 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom place—which is noticeably smaller than our apartment in Salt Lake, but at least the weed smell is confined to the community laundry room instead of right outside our door—we had to return the moving truck to Home Depot. As Eric was waiting for one of the employees to inspect the moving van, he was surprised to hear another employee comment on how green the grass looked in Salt Lake. Eric responded that things were indeed pretty green and nice there right now, to which the guy responded that his (Eric’s) house sure looked nice. Apparently he had randomly looked up the Badger residence on Google maps using the address on our van rental forms. Very odd. At least he didn’t ask to compare underwear or something.

One of the first things we noticed upon reaching Phoenix was the amount of tire shrapnel in the middle of the freeways. Looks like all those hours spent dodging banana peels on Mario Kart paid off since we avoided crashing into any. We have since learned from the locals that the triple digit temperatures all summer really do a number on people’s tires and car batteries, and that they have to be replaced here every 2-3 years. While driving, we also noticed a common message on those electronic signs over the freeways. Almost every one said “Drive hammered, get nailed.” We’re not sure what prompted literally every sign to say that during the last week of May (they reappeared around the 4^th of July, so maybe people do lots of drinking around Memorial Day?), but message received, Phoenix. Fascinating how different cities choose to utilize those signs--the ones back home told us to stop driving so much and contributing to the inversion and these ones tell us to drive sober drive. Pushy little signs.

Speaking of sobriety, there is a stark difference between Utah grocery stores and the ones in Phoenix. Without fail, the first thing you see in any store here is booze. Tons and tons of it, even at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. As if you just walked into a professional athlete’s house or the cellar of an Italian restaurant. Take the entire alcohol selection from Smiths back home and then multiply it by 20 and you have a Phoenix store. And people don’t even wait until they get home to drink their purchases. You often see people sipping wine in the store as they decide which cheese would pair nicely with it. What a world we’ve been missing out on. It also seems like alcohol is at the forefront of every PA student’s mind at any point they aren’t studying or taking a test. Eric has overheard peers talking about celebrating after exams by drinking patron and doing shots (things we’ve previously only heard about in rap songs). Eric even overheard the following line from a fellow student: “I remember the first 6 beers, but the second 6 were a blur.” Hopefully neither of us ever get to the point where we can consume 6 of something and not remember it … Hopefully neither do our health care providers, but that’s looking like a lost cause.

Another lost cause seems to be the temperature ever cooling down. We can count on one hand the days when the temperature dipped below 100 degrees since we’ve been here. The toughest part is that there’s no break from the heat, even after the sun goes down. Typically when we check the temperature right before going to bed, it’s still 100 degrees. We have a pool right by our door, but it bakes in the sun all day so it kinda feels like you’re taking a warm bath. It is so hot that you sweat walking to the mailbox. It’s so hot that a PA classmate successfully cooked a baked potato on his dashboard during class. It’s so hot that our friend Dennis Riley, who kindly agreed to store our outdoor grill for us at his apartment since our apartment outlaws them for some reason, actually had his phone charger melt in his car. It’s so hot that people don’t park based on how close the spot is to their destination, they park based on where shade is (or where they predict it will be in an hour). We’re still waiting for Braxton to come visit us and cook a hot dog on the sidewalk. Maybe some cookies as well (which we saw on the news is also possible to cook in your car).

We have also noticed a few more subtle differences from home, like the grass here being prickly, the birds all looking like tiny roadrunners, and people having cacti in their yards instead of trees. We still feel like loners since we don’t really know anyone yet, although Eric has befriended some birds that wait by his car each morning when he goes to school. He keeps hoping they will come sweep the place up like the friendly forest animals in animated movies.

While we haven’t had much time for adventure, we have managed to go on a few fun dates together. Since Eric doesn’t have classes on Fridays this quarter, we spent one Friday morning at the Phoenix Zoo, which due to extreme summer heat, is only open until 2:00 PM. We saw all sorts of fun animals, including owls, a tiger, a rhino who seemed mesmerized by a big rock that kind of looked like him, giraffes, and lots of snakes and spiders. You could pay to ride a camel, but that experience looked too toasty to be enjoyable. The zoo also had some cool monkeys out on an island that swung around on ropes and put on a great show for us. We also noticed that all the birds there run around with their beaks open, which we predicted was to help with heat management (a hypothesis confirmed by both the internet, as well as a personal experiment by Eric, who later ran around with his mouth open).

For the 4^th of July, we spent the evening at a nearby park with big fireworks similar to the Sugarhouse celebration. We got some great footage of a crazy dancing guy, got some food from local food trucks, and even watched a pretty big tree light on fire and slowly burn to the ground during the fireworks show. The night before we discovered a fried donut shop called the Fractured Prune which was pretty tasty and let you pick the toppings to put on your donut.

But perhaps the most memorable date we’ve had so far was at the Buffalo Chip Saloon in a place called Frontiertown. While it sounds like a new section of Disneyland, this town was even more unique than that. It was about 25 minutes from our apartment and looked like the only place for miles. Once we finally located the Buffalo Chip, we were happy to discover they had pretty good BBQ and apparently have karaoke and other activities throughout the week. However the most interesting part of the night happened after dinner, where, out behind the restaurant, they randomly have bull riding. And not just some hokey mechanical bull, but people riding actual bulls and winning money, with lots of drunk people cheering them on. The guy in charge thanked us all for coming out and offered a “prayer” (which honestly sounded like a TV commercial for the restaurant) and then we spent the next hour watching people get bucked off bulls and get helped by the scary rodeo clown. They even apparently hold “cowboy church” there every Sunday, so we’ll have to go see if there’s a cowboy Jesus as well.

All in all, Phoenix has been a big change, but a fun experience. We’ll hopefully update this blog with more stories from the coming weeks and months. Welcome to the valley of the sun.