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The End of the Road (For Now)
Five days and well over a thousand miles after leaving California, through deserts, forests, reservations, dry counties, curvy roads, a hot Bisbee microbrewmaster, and all the rest, D-Day has finally arrived. I ponder the map, wondering just how lost I can get and still make my appointment with the airline to have them whisk me to San Jose for the final marathon session of WWE shows before the insanity that is Wrestlemania begins.
Biosphere 2 lies somewhat between me and my date with Delta, but so does the Titan Missile museum. I know that if I go to the missile, I will figure out how to launch it and lob a nuke at Tombstone in revenge for stealing my flag. This is why I will probably never be president.
Cooler heads prevail, and I opt for Biosphere 2.
I end up at the tail end of a huge Harley train on the way to Biosphere 2. At the entrance to the ‘Place Where Science Lives’ , the Hog train roars on, leaving my by myself to explore this strange place.
The campus of Biosphere 2 is impressive, and the price of admission is a steep $20. I try to decide if the hour long tour is worth it, decide it isn’t, turn around, get all the way to the parking lot, then decide oh what the hell, it IS worth it and turn back around. Though I am on a somewhat strict schedule, as long as the tour is over by 1 PM, I think I’ll be OK.
If you’re wondering where Biosphere I is, the wackos that built this ultra-expensive debacle consider Biosphere I the Earth, and Biosphere 2 was designed as an enclosed environment and possible way to colonize other planets.
I kind of remember reading about Biosphere 2, and thinking even back then it was a sham. Now that I’m inside the giant glass terrarium, I can see firsthand what a huge sham it is. For example, in the movie that precedes the tour, an eager looking scientist in overalls and a checkered shirt exclaims, “Biosphere 2 is a great way for us to learn about the environment. For example, to study the effects of drought on living organisms, we stopped watering these trees three weeks ago, and now all the trees are dead.”
Dude, if you want to learn about the effect of not watering trees, you don’t need to spend $150,000,000, you are welcome, in the name of science, to visit my front yard anytime for free.
Another Biosphere 2 ‘Experiment’
Comedy in the name of science continues, as our tour guide confides the ‘Biospherians’ – the eight lunatics that volunteered to seal themselves in Biosphere 2 for a few years to see what would happen didn’t have such an easy go of it. Within two months, the group of eight splintered into two groups of four, and the two groups stopped speaking to each other. For nearly two years. Yeah, I bet that was comfortable!
As the experiment wore on, critics disclaimed Biosphere 2, saying the two-year experiment in self-sufficiency is starting to look less like science and more like a $150 million stunt.
Some Biosphere 2 literature defends their experiments, saying, “In the case of Biosphere 2, the experimenters learned that small, closed ecosystems are complex and vulnerable to unplanned events.”
Kind of like life, no?
The tour led us through the ‘Desert,’ the ‘Ocean,’ and the ‘Rainforest,’ before taking us backstage, to the underground machine rooms that make the Biosphere, um… Sphere.
At this point, I’d seen enough. The tour went on, and on, and on. I briefly considered using the emergency axe to make an escape, but simply told the tour guide I had to leave. He nodded, we shared a ‘I know this place is loony’ stare, and I left.
They never did show us where the Biospherians grew their weed, I guess that is on the VIP tour.
One more brief stop for one more Ghost Rider Tribute, and it was time to make a beeline to Sky Harbor International airport, where I made my flight with plenty of time to spare. Before boarding my flight, before imprisoning myself in a tube to breathe recycled farts for two hours, I snapped one, final Ghost Rider tribute, from the parking lot of the airport.
In two days I’ll be back to Phoenix for the week long terror fest known as Wrestlemania.
Author: frenchy
2 Responses to “The End of the Road (For Now)”
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Frenchy.
It was great meeting you. What a surprise.
We continued on up the Coronado Trail in Arizona then to Utah where Jeffrey down. He was fine, but we need a moment of silence for the Interceptor.
Eventually we made it over to Death Valley and then back to Houston.
Got caught in hail and rain west of El Paso. Rode 450 miles, all in heavy rain. At one point the rain was so bad cars were pulling over. When they pull over they are dry, we aren’t so we just kept going.
My next big trip maybe Nigeria to South Africa through Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, DRC, Angloa and Nambia.
Want to go?
enjoyable as always. crossing biosphere off my “to do” list.