Happy Thanksgiving! I just returned from the desert, where I spent a couple days. My younger sister attends school in Tempe, Arizona, so rather than spend Thanksgiving in cold, windy Wyoming, my parents and I went to this suburb of Phoenix to eat turkey and celebrate togetherness. The trip was good, overall, and I enjoyed the time away from lurking deadlines and final projects. A bit short at just over two days, but a good getaway.

In all, I much prefer Colorado to Arizona. Trees had leafs there and the temps were outright hot in the high 70s (about 25 degrees Celsius), which I’m not entirely sure I like. The northern Colorado weather currently is much to my liking, with cool days and cold nights, though I did enjoy wearing my sandals for a couple of days in Tempe.

Moreover, the Phoenix area just isn’t to my liking. Automobiles are a way of life there (as with most of the US), as urban sprawl has left most of the valley surrounded by soulless neighborhoods. Not that Colorado is much better (Colorado Springs is about the most disgusting sprawl-zone ever, especially since the surrounding land is absolutely gorgeous), but as a whole, there’s less sprawl and the cities are more beautiful. The lack of people in Phoenix’s downtown was downright disturbing, though Tempe’s downtown was quite nice and bustling with people. I was shocked by the number of dark roofs on buildings, as dark colors absorb more of the sun’s harsh heat. Building light colored roofs would reduce the use of the omnipresent airconditioning.

For what it’s worth, my prediction: the Phoenix metropolitan area will have massive infrastructure problems in the coming years. Traffic, water and skyrocking utility bills will pose huge problems. Not insurmountible, but huge nevertheless. Phoenix has seen some of the fastest growth of any city in the US, which combined with poor planning, is likely to take its toll sometime in the next few decades. Of course, the place has many good things going for it too. Maricopa County does have the highest concentration of golf courses in the US after all, and the surrounding mountains are astonishing even to this Wyoming/Coloradan.

I took the above photo minutes before landing at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport. The desert is a crazy place, with exotic, highly adapted plants and massive erosion scars. Water erodes the desert’s lands deeply and swiftly since there is little vegetation to hold the soil intact. The Grand Canyon is evidence of this phenomenon, and so is the photo above.