• Phoenix is Calgary

  Day 65

  We’ve been here in Phoenix about a week. Hunkered ourselves down in a cozy little RV park for Christmas, where we met up with my Dad and his partner, Evelyn. It was a lovely Christmas, or Glorbis (see last post), and we laughed, ate, drank, and made merry all the way through the week. Great to chat with our families over Skype and great to take in the first holiday season of our own, too. Forming our own traditions has its appeal.
  
  So we thought it was high time to take in the sights and sounds of Phoenix. These are the things we actually accomplished this week (as you read with bated breath):

  • We went to the mall and watched Avatar on Boxing Day

  • We scooted down to Mill Avenue (a vortex of anti-culture and shopping boutiques) to eat and drink a beer

  • We did that twice

  • We went to a little park and watched the pecking order of some local blackbirds as the sun set

  Now this is by no means a riveting account of all the things people can do in Phoenix (see sad yet exhaustive list of things to do in Phoenix). But I declare: Phoenix is for old people (sorry Dad). If you love botanical gardens, fancy museums, modernism, and dust, and you want to live in a Calgary filled with palms and cacti, this is the place for you. Phoenix is Calgary. In a parallel outer-limits looping-universe kind of way. Don’t get hung up on the, “but Phoenix is a scorching desert & Calgary is an icebox” comparison. I will get to that.
  
  But let’s first discuss some contrasts. Phoenix in many ways is a lot nicer to look at than Calgary. Bus shelters, roads, and buildings have all been designed by an eye wet with appreciation for modernist architecture. Minimalism at its finest. Calgary, on the other hand, is a dump. Have you driven down Macleod Trail recently? Vacant lots with cracked pavement, meridians awash with gravel and garbage. And painted cows. It’s like zero thought was put into the aesthetics or design of this poor city. Even Edmonton has more poise.

  Phoenix has distinct districts that are set up so you can shop and entertain yourself with purpose. Tempe (where we are) has the University culture: tons of breweries, a young crowd, lots of condos. Scottsdale houses your affluent, snobby doctors: overpriced stores and museums, hotels, and fine dining. Mesa is adventure: balloon rides, trails, the old west. Downtown is business. Calgary, on the other hand, is a messy maze of shops, yoga studios, malls, food, a museum, and an overpass. Not entirely a bad thing if you like to accomplish multiple tasks within a small radius (as long as you don’t expect nice landscaping along those random routes).
  
  Calgary reaches a max temperature of 30 degrees (86 F) during its three months of summer (that’s July, August, and sometimes June for those of you who have never cursed the onslaught of a premature Calgary winter). Winters are long and sometimes harsh. Often,  -30 degree temperatures (-22 F for you Americanos) will encase citizens in their frozen homes so that they only leave for food and Tweet ups (do people even say that anymore?). But don’t discount the merciful chinooks that blow in. Then there’s Phoenix: hot. Hotter than most desert cities: a whopping 43 degrees (110 F) in the lightly humid summers (I say ‘lightly humid’ lightly). The winters here are still a balmy 22 degrees (70 F) in most cases. Except for right now. El Niño has opened its mouth and upchucked arctic winds all over the globe, so we’re all suffering.
  
  You’re likely thinking Phoenix and Calgary have very little in common. Wrong. I saved the most striking comparison for last. We stepped into a parallel universe this week where oddball folks who saunter the sidewalks made us believe we had been transported back home.  Phoenix, in all its golden glory, is little more than Calgary suburbia nightmare (Douglasdale, Mackenzie Town, Somerset, or all tromping down 17th Ave or in the malls, or at Earls/Moxies/JoeyTomatoes); its citizens petulantly attempting counter culture. You see, we think rich bored folks from Canada, Europe, and the rest of the US moved to little Phoenix to take in its cacti gardens and RV parks and have inadvertently spawned ungodly children.
  
  These children parallel the Calgarians who attempt goth, hipster, new age, punk, jock, druggie, or transgender, but who stand out because of their misunderstanding of their own culture. These are the spoiled rich kids and awkward misfits who rebel to be different but kind of forgot what it was they were rebelling against. They just blend into a plethora of bandanas & skinnies, odd purple or streaked faux hawks & dog collars, or white sunglasses & blue-flamed button downs  (you have seen them strutting 17 Ave and you see them in American Apparel). Less eighteen year old floozies wearing tights and gaping t-shirts here, though. So I guess that’s an improvement.
  
  The more time we spend there, the more we look forward to leaving. It’s not that we don’t like Phoenix, but unfortunately it flashed us a mirror of all the things in Calgary we are running from.
  
  I am sure Vegas will put us at ease. Its counter culture can’t really be compared with anything familiar. Calgary lacks that dead lily smell of perfumed casinos and the radioactive glow of sewers beneath doped up escorts.

  Walter is hauling us out of here tomorrow, so we can party New Year’s Eve up with Wil. So long Phoenix. We won’t miss you, but you were cool.

  Posted on December 27, 2009

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