I loved geography class in school. I still love geography. I love maps, and I frequently take them with me when I fly so that I can sit by the window and compare the view from the air to the view on the map. While we think of a map as a snapshot of what lies below, the map always fails to accurately capture everything that is on the ground. We’ll discuss that a bit in this article as we talk about a very specific geography, that which exists between Ottawa, KS and Tempe, AZ.
As I write this, I am sitting on the patio deck of a 3rd floor apartment in Tempe, AZ. Through the treetops I can see South Mountain, a very distinct geographic and geologic symbol that forms the southern boundary of the Valley of the Sun. Walking out the front door, I can see Camelback Mountain, another even more famous geographic and geologic boundary that defines the northern border of the Valley.
We are here because I took a position with a very interesting organization called UAT, a university that delivers extremely high-end technological degrees and experiences to its students. I’ll share more about the university in future writings, but for now, we must remain focused on geography.
The geography between Ottawa and Tempe is very important. Because Gloria and I have maintained our home in Ottawa, there is the need to travel back and forth, and at the same time there was a need to bring lots of stuff to establish an apartment here. And because of my love of maps and geography, the trips back and forth are all about the geography. Traveling by air is necessary because the trip by car takes 18 hours. However, the trip by car is MUCH more interesting. There are ALWAYS things you can see from the ground that you cannot see from the air. But the flipside is also true – there are ALWAYS things that you can see in the air that you cannot see from the ground. And so the story begins.
By Car
Having to furnish an apartment that is 1300 miles away is not an easy thing to do. But after all these years of marriage, we have accumulated a magnificent 
collection of “stuff” that could easily furnish several apartments, and perhaps an entire apartment complex. So we packed it all up in a U-Haul, rented a trailer to put the car on, and headed out. My son decided to move to Tempe permanently. So he had his pick-up truck. My father flew from Florida a week early to help me get the yard ready for summer, help us pack, and help us drive. We both share the hobby of landscaping, so we can get a lot done together. My father also has a hobby of photography, and he likes to document trips and visits and other things. So if you ever doubt anything that I write in this article, my father has a picture of it. In fact, he has about 2000 pictures of this particular trip.
From the ground, you get to see some of the six million head of cattle that forage in the Flint Hills of Kansas, one of the last stands of Tall Grass Prairie in the United States. It was here where millions of buffalo roamed, and the rolling nature of the hills are really not noticeable from the air. From the ground you get to see the massive, massive oil wells that start in Kansas and extend through Oklahoma and Texas. From the ground you get to experience, first-hand, absolute nothingness in Western Texas, which doesn’t sound exciting, but driving through it brings a whole new appreciation for how much of America remains undeveloped.
One of the more interesting aspects of the road trip from Ottawa to Tempe is that it follows the historic 
Route 66 nearly the entire way. You can see Rt 66 from the air (now Rt 40 , one of the major US interstates), but you can’t experience its historic impact on establishing Western Americana. From the ground, you get to see man-made things like the Cadillac Ranch, real Cadillac cars rammed into the ground and other peculiar touristy things that are not visible from the air, such as the Johnson Family Sheep Farm that houses the largest population of five-legged sheep in the world. (anything to make a buck, I guess) Won’t see THAT from the air. (Nor do you want to.) But you also get to see geological things that you just can’t see clearly from the air, like the Petrified Forest, the Painted Desert, Meteor Crater, and Oklahoma’s famed Cave of Flying Pigs.
But perhaps the most enjoyable part of our road trip was the little side excursion through Sedona, AZ, where the mountains explode in color as you wind down through the Oak Creek gorge. Because my attempts to describe its natural beauty would fall far short, I’ll simply say that it is really one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It is also one of the weirdest, and I mean that with the utmost respect. It seems that in Sedona there are certain locations where the spirit world touches our reality or where the natural and rhythmic vibrations of Mother Earth spring from the rocks. That’s why people sit naked there and hum in low-pitched droning choruses. I’m really not into that sort of stuff, but the world is much more interesting because those people ARE into it. There have been a few times in my life when I could have been easily convinced to join them.
By Plane
One of the most enjoyable parts of flying is watching just how suddenly the geography changes. You see lakes, rivers, fields, and valleys all sewn together, almost like a quilt. And many times the patches of the quilt are quite distinct, changing dramatically and all of a sudden. You don’t get that sense as much or as dramatically from the ground. It is almost like the Creator said “I’ll put a canyon here, and I’ll put a great high plain there, and I’ll put a mountain range there”. And then it was all sewn together. You also get the sense of how much impact we, as humans, have had on this Earth, and equally, how much impact we have not yet had. There are VAST areas that are undeveloped, and we are still quite small. And this planet will indeed outlive us, no matter how much we try to screw it up.
Speaking of what we are doing to it, one of the more shocking parts of the flyover from Ottawa to Tempe is viewing the birthplace and current production center of TexMex cooking. Near the border of Texas and New Mexico – hence the name TexMex – lie the great taco mines, burrito fields, refried bean nurseries, and Tequila wells. You won’t see these from any major route on the ground, as they lie far into the hinterlands of the great West. But from the air, you can see how Mother Earth has been ravaged by Taco Bell’s careless strip-mining practices, how the massive burrito fields have drained precious water from the reservoirs, and how senseless Tequila drilling has caused toxic runoff. I tried pointing these out to my wife, along with their implications for humanity, but she didn’t believe me, and then she said something rude. It’s hard to teach her important things sometimes. 
Tempe
This is called the Valley of the Sun for good reason. There is a lot of sun here. And it is hot. It is routinely 100 degrees or more in the summer. We have been the beneficiaries of the local citizens’ warnings of such heat. But let me tell you something…..we’re not coming from Alaska. We’re coming from Kansas. And in Kansas you not only have routine 100-degree days, but you have routine 60+ percent humidity that accompanies them. Let’s do the math with the help of the Heat Index calculator (http://www.crh.noaa.gov/jkl/?n=heat_index_calculator) When it is 90 in Kansas, and the humidity is 60%, which it always is, the heat index tells us what temperature it really feels like – in this case it feels like 113 degrees. That’s hot. Tempe is in the state of Aridzona. No, that’s not misspelled. Yesterday the humidity was 5%. 
When we plug that into the magic calculator, assuming an accompanying temperature of 113 degrees, it actually FEELS like 104. So much of the time in the summer, Kansas feels hotter than Tempe. And in Tempe there is far less wind. In Kansas, the wind on a normal day sucks the air out of your lungs. And in Tempe the wind does not pick up your house and crash it into magical kingdoms with witches and trolls and talking lions, all of which is a very disturbing aspect of Kansas geography that has somehow become more fact than legend.
And so I sit here on my 3rd floor deck, actually enjoying the 94-degree temperature. The heat index says it is much cooler than that. The air is clear, the mountains are quite visible, and the birds are enjoying the veritable cornucopia of feed that I have provided for them. I am wearing my KU hat, which has a bright red Jayhawk on it, and the hummingbirds occasionally hover around my head as they go to and 
from the hummingbird feeder that is part of this menagerie. I’m not sure the neighbors below me appreciate the birdfest going on up here, but I think it’s soothing. The neighbors are Chinese, and I do not speak Chinese. So while I can’t understand their chattering and laughing on the deck below me, I’m pretty sure it is directed at the crazy birdman that lives upstairs.
Our Introduction to the Desert
One may think that a desert is not a place of beauty or abundant wildlife. Nothing could be further from the truth. While the fauna is different, it is still beautiful, and there is an abundance of wildlife, from rabbits to fox to desert chickens/pheasants, to jackalopes (so I’ve heard…the jackalope is a cousin of the Eastern Snipe – both species are elusive). But the desert is actually controlled by a different species, one that we crossed paths with last night. And it is not Man.
I hauled (perhaps drug is a better word) my wife and daughter (our daughter is visiting from KS) out to Papagos Park, not far from where we live. There one can hike and find an elevation to view the city, sunsets, and just generally experience the desert. We arrived at dusk, parked the car beside a half dozen others, and then proceeded to head up the path. I took my wife’s arm because she was wearing flip-flops, and I wanted to make sure she didn’t trip and fall, something that would have repercussions for my happiness at home for many years. It would undoubtedly be my fault. My daughter also wore flip-flops. I had not told them we would be hiking. Sometimes I have to fool them into doing such things. Well, this was all going swimmingly well. We were out of the car, heading up the path, and I thought this was going to be a terrific experience. And then it happened. Nearly simultaneously, my wife and daughter screamed. Not gasped, not raised their voices, not exclaimed. They screamed, and then they jumped, and then they danced, and then they smacked their feet. We had found a colony – or perhaps the Mothership – of Africanized Killer Fire Ants. It was most painful for my wife and daugther, and most entertaining to the dozen or so people that had perched themselves just above us on the ridge. They had assumed they had come to the park to watch a peaceful sunset. What they saw was an unequaled demonstration of dancing, screaming/shrieking/squealing, and flailing of arms and feet that they had ever seen. Afterwards they applauded and asked for an encore. My wife yelled something rude to them, accompanied by some non-verbal-but-perfectly-understandable communications, and we then had to go home.
It is obvious we know a lot about heat, a lot about tornadoes, a lot about taco mines and the prairie and feeding birds. But we know nothing about the desert. And we probably never will, as I will never get my wife back out there without the equivalent of a space suit.
We very quickly went home, stopping at the drugstore along the way to get Benadryl. Today we are going only as far as the pool. I’ll have to figure out some other way to fool them into venturing into the desert.
Gotta go…. God bless. Do your best. Enjoy life.
