This morning we are sad to be leaving Tucson. It is a great town, but we are also looking forward to visit Vineet, Hunter and Raylan again in Scottsale.
We pack up the car with a bit of a chilly wind but we think it will warm up as we head north - yes, that theory worked once we got to Phoenix but our first stop was Biospehere 2 about 30 minutes north of Tucson.
We arrived at Biosphere 2 at 9.15am and the temperature was 5 degrees and colder with wind chill. Brrr... good thing it is a climate controlled indoor science experiment. We headed quickly into the Visitors Centre and paid our tour fee.
Biosphere 2 gets its name as it is a huge greenhouse with a range of different climates inside which scientists study. Biosphere 1 is the earth.
Looks very futuristic and it is really interesting.
Biosphere 2 was built in the late 80's with a private donation of $150M by a gentleman called Edgar Boss and was a private run scientific project for many years. The facility is now owned by the University of Arizona who offer the facility to scientists around the world for experiments. It became famous for a while in about 1991 when 8 people (4 men and women) were locked inside the closed environment for 2 years.
A current huge science project underway is in the buildings behind Hans. It is called LEO - Land Environment Observatory - and they have created hillsides and are flowing rain over it to understand how water and soil interacts. They expect 1,000,000 pieces of data as a result.
A man made hill slope below.
A few of the indoors environments below... The ocean - about 10 metres deep at its deepest point.
The "fog" desert - cooler and slightly wetter than typical Arizona.
The different tunnels and doors were definitely not built for average to tall people.
We even see the underlying engineering and system rooms. This room was built as an air "lung" to cope with shifting air around the facility as plants and the ocean "breath". If there is a build up of air the ceiling rises. If a door to the outside opens the ceiling lowers.
A "world map"... Really??
After Biosphere 2, we went back on road 77 for a short while before driving west on road 79 towards Phoenix.
We stopped for lunch in "Historic Florence", yep that was the spiel. The small town centre was almost void of both people and cars, but just outside of it we found Old Pueblo Mexican restaurant, which was buzzing (felt like half the town were there for Sunday lunch!). We had great mexican food yet again and not too expensive either.
In Scottsdale, we made a quick visit into Wal Mart to get some provisions for the next couple of days. We were met in there with this display of Francis Ford Coppola alcoholic wares...
A few relaxing hours with Vineet and the dogs was a great way to unwind. Dinner was Di's home made green curry chicken and then we all plonked down with drinks and a full belly to watch the Oscars in TV. This is what Hunter thought about it...
And it wasnt just Hunter dozing in front of the Oscars! And the winner is...
... Sleep. Good night.
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