Seeing Phoenix, Arizona for the first time


I remember the first time I saw Phoenix. I was 19 years old and had driven there from Minneapolis, Minnesota in August.

I really had no idea what to expect. I had a vague idea that it might have sand dunes, and look like the Sahara Desert, or it might have look like some old Western town from the movies. It really didn't matter to me - it was an adventure, I was far from home, and whatever it was, it was going to be exciting, and exotic. I had grown up in a world of snow and pine trees, and I know what I wanted to see - a palm tree.

The first exit I took was Cactus Road. Just the thought of seeing a cactus growing outside was amazing, and apparently there was a road with the name "cactus"! I was stunned. I drove a bit, pulled over somewhere, got out of my car, walked up to a palm tree, and touched it with my hand. I can still feel that feeling. It was a feeling of awe, and amazement.

Of course, if you've always lived in a place, you really can't see it that way. A road named "Cactus" and palm trees are just commonplace things. I often talk to my friends who grew up in Phoenix about that feeling and they just smile and nod. To them, the fact that it never snows in Phoenix, or that there are lizards on the walls is just the way it is, nothing to be amazed at.

After all of these years my amazement of Phoenix never ceases. Every winter I remember how strange it felt to be warm, and for there to be no snow. I still watch a lot of sunsets. When I lived in my little "shack" while going to ASU, I would always go out at sunset and watch the sun go down. I would just stand there, and see colors painted in the sky that I had never seen before.

If you want to see Phoenix the way I do, even if you've lived there all of your life, try seeing it through the eyes of people like me. Hang around with some people who are visiting, or with people who have just moved there. Yes, there will be conversations with complaints, about how tricky it is to use the freeways, or how things are so different from somewhere else. But let the conversation drift in another direction, and you may be surprised at how exciting and beautiful Phoenix, and Arizona, is. I guarantee that you'll see it for the first time, and it will be astonishing.

Image at the top of this post: An apartment complex named called "Saguaro", 4201 N. 9th Street.  I just loved that! And the photo was taken in the dead of winter. Can you imagine?!
If you liked this article, and would like to see more, please consider becoming a patron of History Adventuring on Patreon. If you're already a patron, thank you! You make this happen!

Click here to become a Patron!
History adventuring posts are shared there daily. The basic tier is a dollar a month, and the PhD tier, which includes "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, videos, and super high-definition photos, is five dollars a month, and is discounted for seniors, veterans, and students.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more