BioSphere? More Like BioSuck.
Saturday, December 04, 2004
Posted by: Zach
Wow, it's been three days without an update! What have you all been doing with your free time that's usually spent on the world's coolest weblog? Please comment to let us know.
Here's what we've been up to.
After determining that Mexico isn't worth more than a quick visit, we continued east to Arizona. We took a different route than we originally planned since we had already been through Phoenix during our Grand Canyon snow detour two weeks ago. This time we followed Interstate 8, headed for Tucson, home of Biosphere 2. What happened to Biosphere 1, you ask? That's Earth. Yeah, scientists are clever. Ha ha. They created a big greenhouse with several different climates, modeled after some real places on Earth, and instead of calling it Earth 2, Mini-Earth, or Super Terrarium World, they decided to re-name Earth and call this thing the sequel. And they actually refer to Earth as "Biosphere 1" throughout this whole place.
So we decided to check out Biosphere 2. We called the information line and found out that it closes at 5:00 PM, and that the last tickets are sold at 4:00. The recording also said that it's 20 minutes north of Tucson. So we left the hotel at 2:00 PM, headed north toward Super Terrarium World, and an hour and 45 minutes later we finally got to the exit. "Cool, we're almost there.", we thought. But the road turned into dirt, and soon we were dodging bulldozers, piles of dirt, and front end loaders making our way to the Biosphere. After at least 6 miles of this we arrived at the exhibit. We walked in, followed by a friendly British couple who followed us in on the dirt trail, and asked for two tickets. "Well, it will have to be a self-guided tour. Our last tour started at 3:30." we were told. "But we called the number and they said..." We were cut off. "The message says 'The last tickets are sold at 4:00 PM.' Our last guided tour starts at 3:30." We argued, and she offered to give us the "student" rate of $13 (as opposed to the regular adult rate of $20), and when we balked, she made a follow-up offer of $5 each to go walk around the outside of Biosphere 2 without actually entering or seeing any of the cool stuff. We accepted.
It's actually pretty cool. They have a huge "rainforest" section with bananas growing and everything. All of the condensation on the glass panels made it really hard to appreciate, though. There were a few places that we could see inside OK, but overall, it was kind of a letdown. The "desert" section was easy to see, and it might have been more impressive had we not already spend 50 hours or so driving through the real desert. They also have a functional 900,000 gallon ocean complete with fish, coral, and a beach that they created with a wave machine. Now, that was cool.
We also got to see the "museum" section of Biosphere 2, where we learned all about how recycling more and driving less is good for the environment. And did you know that Biosphere 1 is getting warmer and warmer each year? It has something to do with hairspray. Ask your local scientist to elaborate.
Here... you get the same "looking at posters" experience we had:
So overall our Biosphere 2 experience was sort of a bust, but I must admit that the whole project is pretty impressive. I remember reading all about it back several years when it was new and they were performing all sorts of big time experiments in there. It would be awesome if they ended up building Biosphere 3 in some inhabitable place like Mars, the moon, or East Nashville.
During our time in Tucson we also checked out the Mission San Xavier del Bac. It's a huge Spanish mission south of town, and it might have been the coolest thing we've seen on this trip. I won't get into the details, mostly because I've forgotten much of what I saw in the free educational video, but this place was built in the 1800s using some pretty primitive techniques. Or so they thought. When they started restoration in the late 1970s, they were using white cement to repair cracks in the old plaster that was made of sand and cooked cactus. They found out, thought, that the cement would suck up water and crumble doing more damage to the original facade. Bad news. So they've started repairing everything using the original techniques, and it's really working out well. They've also restored some amazing artwork inside the mission, including removing layers of sloppy over-painting. There's still much work to be done, but they're making some serious progress. One of the coolest things about this place is that it's still a functional church. Locals attend often, and there was actually a service going on when we arrived. We felt a little bit weird about walking into the sanctuary while people were praying and saying "Ooohhh, look at the pretty ceiling!", so we didn't.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that I DID end up eating at L.A.'s own Fatburger!
