A company in Arizona wanted to pump Arizonan water across the state border to a new development in Southern Nevada. Both states are water scarce states, in fact the whole US South-West is in permanent water scarcity.

An administrative law judge has recommended that the transfer of water be denied [pdf]. IIRC from what I heard on the radio this morning, there is some 1970s law which has never been used before which stops that kind of water transfer. The local Arizonan residents are concerned as the water is from an aquifer and they are worried it would leave their wells dry.

From the decision:

The ADWR staff is recommending that the Director deny Wind River's Application because it is inaccurate in certain respects, and because ADWR determined that Wind River did not submit studies that are satisfactory to determine the probable hydrologic impact on the Mormon Wells area.

The objections are mainly administrative. There is also a history of cross border co-operation for what are largely arbitrary state political boundaries.

With the commission money he earned from the Falling Water home in Pennsylvania Frank Lloyd Wright bought 500+ acres in Scottsdale, AZ. At the time Scottsdale was a little desert outpost with about two hundred residents, not the trendy fashion-laden suburb it is now. Wright used his land, Taliesin West, to develop ideas on Organic Architecture as well as establish an architectural school for many students. Plus it allowed him to avoid the bitter Wisconsin winters.

Many innovations came out of Taliesin West; the great room as seen in the photo above, track lighting, floor lighting that could be walked on, use of steel reinforcement in concrete, rooms that integrated with the landscape and canvas roofing that allowed for uniform natural light to flow into the room. We can celebrate Wright as innovator, but we can't really celebrate him at Taliesin West as a designer. The place looks cheap, nasty, haphazard, unfinished, incoherent and inconsistent. It is not 'designed' but rather reflects the changing and eccentric interests of Wright himself.

A good example of the inconsistency is the Asian sculptures. They are ceramic and he picked them up cheaply in a crate because they were broken. They do not fit with the buildings or site at all, rather they just represent his cheap nature and interests. But then Wright was cheap except when he was expensive. His bathroom in his bedroom has polished aluminium walls and fixtures; which cost a fortune back then. That style is common and fashionable (as well as expensive) today, so he was innovative, but again it just represents his whimsical interests rather than being an integrated and flowing design.

Still; the place definitely has its moments, like the sloped and triangular buttresses of the design offices[below].

Taliesin West is worth a look but it is not a showroom. It is basically the physical constructs stemming from the changing and incoherent interests of an innovative and difficult man. It is no architectural nirvana.

Last weekend I went quadding up in the high plains desert of Arizona. The photo below is taken just above an old stage coach stop in the rolling hills of the high plains.

The high plains desert is a lot like the Australian scrub. There is very little water but an awful lot of vegetation that has adapted to the water sparse environment. About thirty metres to the left of where I took the picture was a natural spring. Which probably accounts for why it was a 19thC stage coach resting place.

We traveled as a group with a jeep, a ute and two quads; driving up through a dry river bed, to a wash and on to a ghost mining town via what I would call fire access roads though I think they were graded because there was still some mining interests in the area.

The Arizona sun is very strong. Like Australia it is easy to get sunburnt even when being conscious of the damage it can do. Then again you can also take your shirt off deliberately to get a tan and shun the skin cancer concerns. Since I grew up in Sydney shirtless I am probably close to a lost cause anyway.

For the first time since moving to the US I have a tan. Ironically it makes me feel ... almost ... aussie again.

Phoenix has city hikes which are large out crops of rock in the city and its surrounding suburbs. They are now public land and an entwined part of the culture to hike them. Camelback and Squaw Peak are the most vertical of the city hikes. They are tough.

It has been nine months since I was separated though I am still not divorced yet. I started to refocus on the my fitness and body in August of last year; partly to take my mind off what was happening, but also the fear that I may not be competitive if I had to go on the singles market again. Since then I have dropped my body fat to below 12% and now look like I did in my early twenties.

I did Squaw Peak this morning and after nine months of gym/fitness training I have pretty much conquered it. I went up it fast without a loss in stride or over-laborious breathing.

I am pretty proud of what I have achieved. It is not so easy doing it with a thirty seven year old body that is still carrying dents and weaknesses courtesy of playing Australian Rules when a youngster.

However I went up Squaw Peak a little too easily so I suspect I have progressed beyond that as a challenge. I think I am going to have to look to something physically more difficult; maybe a half triathlon, or something of that nature that I will have to train myself for in order to not embarrass myself.

Phoenix has been overcast, cold and drizzly all day. It is very unseasonal. The photograph below is from my car heading north up the 101 and looking toward the McDowell Ranges.

Normally at this time of day the McDowell Ranges are in stark relief against a bright blue sky and the long shadows of their own peaks.

Ironically the desert sun and heat has created a market for undercover parking which is in short supply. One of my workmates just leased an under-cover site in the parking lot for $40 a month. Apparently this is normal practice to charge for parking under a carport-like tin roof which at least offers some relief from the direct sun.

One of the things I loved about Germany was its alt stadt or old town. Every large city you went to would have one of varying sizes, such as Munich's massive one, or Aachen's smaller one. It was great. They were paved and pedestrian friendly; had hotels on their perimeter, and contained plenty of pubs and restaurants inside them.

Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix, has an old town as well. It stretches to the Fashion Center and Waterfront, but is a small labyrinth of road and shops that are pedestrian friendly with plenty of tourist traps, restaurants and bars. We go there a lot.

I played paintball up in the North East ranges. It was a group of guys that do it once a month for fun, and the purposes of doing it without the hassles of playing through a commercial operation.

They bring their own barriers, markers, air tanks etc. One of them found out I had played paintball in Australia and invited me along. I was glad he did, I had a tonne of fun.

I wasn't very good the first few games, I was overly aggressive and careless in protecting myself; leading to several nice welts to remind me that patience is a virtue. By the end of the morning I had picked up the rhythm of the game again and was doing ok for myself. Main benefit was that I was no longer target practice for some of the skilled regulars.

I love the contrast between violence and gaming in the picture above. The black balaclava has become the images of the war on terror. The terrorists use it to hide their identity on training videos and interviews, while the western nations cloak the identity of their special forces for similar reasons. We also have seen the black hood on Saddam Hussein and the inmates at Guantanamo. The incognito aspect of the black hood and balaclava are very much images of the subterfuge of the war on terrorism.

Paintball is inherently dangerous, despite protective clothing and keeping pressures in guns low, you never know. But it is funny to see the black mask on someone wielding a marker and hiding behind a pink splattered barrier.

Water occupies a central role in the desert city of Phoenix. The city is criss-crossed with canals and public spaces are dominated by either water fountains or water misters off the commercial buildings.

The fountain above is from a tiny little strip mall in downtown Tempe, AZ. Phoenix is an architecturally adventurous city however the commonality of the water fountain is almost an under-lying celebration and fear of the role water has in the sustainability and viability of the city. Everyone is fully aware that if the water dries up then Phoenix will effectively cease to exist. The fountains in the public spaces are an uncomfortable expression of both the plentiful and scarce nature of fresh water.

The Sonoran Plain has large dry river beds not unlike the NSW western plains. The largest of these is the Gila River which runs through the West Valley of Phoenix. It is a wide stretch of trees, shrubs, rocks and sand which presumably carries the water out of the city when the monsoons hit.*

Currently there is a brush fire in the Gila River basin. There is no danger to homes as the fire, fueled by high temperatures and wind, is running up the river bed. The brush fire has been going for three days now proving impervious to firefighters and water drops from the air. I took the photo above at sunset last night.

The temperatures in Phoenix for the last two weeks have been in the 40C to 46C mark; hot enough that it was 38C the other day and people wore jeans to work instead of shorts. Phoenix is similar to Sydney in so many respects it is uncanny.

I have not yet been through a monsoon season in the desert, but apparently the start of the monsoon is when storms come through throwing lightning but not water. Again remarkably like the August storms western Sydney would get that would cause bush fires by carrying lightning but no water.

However I remember in the Hawkesbury that the flood season was normally easter, not August. That month was better known for its dry storms and buffeting winds.

* Confirmed. The rivers apparently swelled during the monsoon season. Not as much as they used to as the cities have been damming the rivers such as Tempe lake which is a dam in downtown Tempe.

I went up Bell Pass today. It was a tough hike of approximately four miles with the last two miles being steeply vertical. The pass bridges the mountain range between the western and eastern aspects.

Phoenix is perenially hot now and there is no good time to go and do a hike. I did it between 10am and 1pm which put the temperature around 105F (about 42C). I took three bottles of water up which summed to two pints of water and had used every last drop by the time I had got back down to my car.

The city hikes of Camelback, Squaw Peak and South Mountain are well known but with the expansion of Scottsdale so far north new trails are being put in the McDowell National Park for hikers and mountain bikers. Bell Pass is one of the new ones. I expect as it gets better known it will rival Camelback's Echo Canyon and Squaw Peak's main trail as a tough vertical hike. Personally I think it is harder than Echo Canyon.