Link to Biosphere 2 Facebook Pictures

Today we woke up early (in a real bed!) and said goodbye to Josh. I am so thankful that I got to meet a distant Cunico, and learn all about him and his family. I am grateful that he contacted me and wanted to meet me after reading about our trip. I hope to have some more experiences like that! It’s really cool that we have distant cousins all over the country, and that they each know a piece of Cunico history. I have a newfound appreciation and interest in my cousin Barth’s work on the Cunico genealogy. Traveling like this is really opening my eyes to the vast amount of topography and people that inhabit this country.

After leaving Josh’s apartment, Molly and I headed towards Biosphere 2.

It’s a massive steel-framed, glass-paned structure in the middle of the desert. It’s airtight, and inside is a series of five different biomes – all climate controlled to mimic the real-life conditions.

It was built in the 1980’s, and various ecology related experiments have been conducted here. For example, they artificially raised the CO2 levels inside the rainforest biome, to see if the vegetation there could handle our ever-increasing CO2 content. They monitored the growth levels, and found that after 800ppm, the plants had slowed/stunted growth rates. You would think that since plants use CO2, the more the better. But this is not the case. Right now, our CO2 levels are around 400ppm.

There was a manned mission inside the Biosphere, in the early 1990’s. A team of eight researchers stayed in there for two years, in a completely closed system. This meant that they had to grow all of their foods, they had a goat for milk/cheese production (vitamin D), and they had to recycle EVERYTHING. The only paper product that they had was the notebooks which they recorded data in. They didn’t have toilet paper – they used a bidet next to the toilet to clean up. The scientists were doing a ton of work – agricultural, data-recording, equipment monitoring and repair – on only 1600 calories of food a day. They were getting all of the nutrients they needed from all of the fruits/vegetables they were growing, but calorie-wise, they were deficient. Over the two years, they lost around 18% of their body weight, and they came out of that Biosphere looking like skeletons. The glass panes also blocked the long-wave UV rays (which cause oxidation in the skin) so they all looked like pale white ghosts when they left. Our tour guide, Franklin, really made it interesting and engaging. He used to be a teacher – one of the ones that makes the material come to life.

The Biosphere has a different section called the “Lung”. Since the air expands and contracts as it gets hotter/colder, there needed to be a place for it to do this. Otherwise, it would put way too much outward pressure on the glass panes, possibly breaking / otherwise harming the structure. They built a huge dome-like structure, called the Lung. When you walk in, it’s a huge cylinder-shaped room. If you look up, there is a doughnut-shaped roof of rubber, and in the center of that rubber is a concrete “roof”. This multi-ton roof can rise or fall with the expansion of air. He opened the door to the outside and the change in pressure actually caused it to lower. Hopefully, my pictures will be able to make this more clear, because I’m not sure if I’m doing a good job of describing it.

Since this Biosphere has five different biomes, you’re able to walk 20 feet from biome-to-biome and geographically, it’s like you’ve traveled hundreds of miles.

This place was amazing. I would go again in a heartbeat! There is also a museum-like area with different exhibits that you can read. I saw a tree section from 225 BC, and you could see the different rings which indicated when there were droughts and fires. There were fossils (one of which was from Cuneo, Italy!), and there was an entire room dedicated to various ways to make a building sustainable and environmentally-friendly. They were advocating a system that monitors all the different systems that occur inside a building – HVAC, electrical, data-transfer, space allocation and usage – and instead of treating them like different systems, figuring out a way to make them all coexist in a more efficient manner.

The Biosphere has an area where the scientists were growing their food, and inside the soil they have various sensors which can detect the CO2 levels, how fast the water seeps into the soil, how much of a weight difference this creates, etc.

On the second Biosphere mission, they brought in a farmer from Nepal to specialize in growing their food organically. During this mission, the scientists were getting about 2200 or more calories a day. This Nepalese farmer, instead of planting the plants in organized rows like we do, planted them all together. He would utilize each and every space, planting certain low-lying plants underneath the taller ones. I hope you get the gist of it – but the interdependency that he was creating was fascinating to learn about. I think farmers here (especially amateur gardeners) could look into this style and possibly benefit from the increased yields and more efficient use of space.

I am only touching the surface of what I learned about at the Biosphere. I think in a previous life, I was an environmental scientist of some sort. There are so many disciples and sub-categories of earth sciences, that it would be hard to decide upon one. We stayed at this place for about 3-3.5 hours, LONG after our 1.5 hour tour had ended.

After the Biosphere, we started heading towards Phoenix. Molly’s friends, Britney and Alex, live here.

Molly offered to drive about halfway through since I was getting tired. Little did I know, she would be going through downtown Phoenix rush-hour traffic, similar to our traffic on I-285. She got a lot of practice stopping-and-going in a stick-shift, and only stalled out once the entire time. I was extremely proud of her and am less fearful that the clutch on my Honda will burn out prematurely.

When we made it to Phoenix, we visited Britney at her place of work. The Kroger’s out here (called Fry’s), actually have DAYCARE centers inside of them. The parents can leave their children inside these FREE daycares, while they shop or drink coffee at the grocery store. It was a novel concept, but I don’t think it would work out east. Too many people would abuse the system, for sure. I am sure that at least one person would go from daycare-to-daycare, telecommuting at the Starbucks and letting someone else take care of their kid.

Molly and I killed some time by going to a store called Sprout’s (an organic food-market), and Whole Foods for figs. Molly had seen a fig tree during the Biosphere tour and was dead set on finding some fresh figs!

After our little romp around town, we went to Britney’s house. Her parents were extremely nice and inviting. They also have two dogs as well – Whiskey and (I forget the name right now). One of their dogs was recently bit by a COYOTE! It has two bites on its butt..I thought it was crazy. It really is the wild west out here!

Molly and I got some really good advice and tips on California from Britney’s mom, who lived in California for a large part of her life. Molly and I need to sit down and plan out our Arizona itinerary, and find the most logical route to the different destinations.

We for sure want to go to Sedona, Red Rocks, Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon, Montezuma’s Castle, and the Hoover Dam. After the Hoover Dam, we will probably head to Vegas for a day or two, since we will already be so close. Then from there, we haven’t decided whether or not to go south to San Diego to visit my friend Matt, or head to Glendale to visit Molly’s friend, or head north. Decisions, decisions.

Another warm shower and a bed are wonderful treats. I woke up around 8:30am and started updating the blog – have to keep the world informed! We aren’t sure what we will do in/around the Phoenix area, but we will be hanging out with Britney for the day!