Escaping Election Day DC

Another solid week of trips. I promised myself I would never tire/complain of all my traveling, as I know it'll most likely be taken away from me one day. Instead, I need to savor this time of my life, and this past week was one worthy of such savory.

Two words: Biosphere and Colorado. Two things I hadn't properly visited in my life - I'd been to Denver airport for a layover, but according to the rules, that doesn't count.

In grade school, I recall hearing about this mythical Biosphere in the Current Events portion of the curriculum. I remember the news in the 90's covered this story about a glass-covered ecological enclosure in the middle of the desert, somewhere in United States. Seeing still pictures of it, it always seemed like a magical place, a technological masterpiece. Its grandiose array of glass panes, tubular frame parts and futuristic pods made a lasting impression in my head. Even Pauly Shore's cinematic parody of the monstrosity, entitled Biodome, couldn't taint its magnificence, at least, not in my adolescent mind.

As the turn of the century rolled through, the Biosphere pretty much left my memory. Its relevance in the national spotlight was pretty much null, as a few failed experiments relegated the Biosphere to newsworthiness retirement. Honestly, it could've very well been called the Biodome for all I cared.

Last month, I caught word that the University of Arizona was hosting a meeting I was attending at the Biosphere. Hearing that name was like suddenly remembering an old friend. I immediately hit up Wikipedia to read up on it, where I discovered that this thing was in Arizona, and that it was still alive and kicking. I was intrigued, borderline excited, to be reunited with this childhood memory.

Tuesday evening, I finally made it out to Oracle, Arizona, home of the Biosphere 2 (Biosphere 1 being the actual planet Earth). B2, as they call it, was literally in the middle of No Where, USA. Leaving Oracle Road, by way of Tucson, you drive another 6 miles past the guard shack to make it to the desert valley where B2 resides.

The intrigue continued, as Val, the events host for the sphere, directed my group to our dormitory-style accommodations. Two things to note about that last sentence - 1) Val was a very cheery woman, but a bit of a space cadet whose slight German accent and crazy eyes didn't help her cause, and 2) yes, I stayed in a former Columbia University dorm room for 2 nights. After the Biosphere experiments disbanded, Columbia decided to rent out the place to conduct its own research, resulting in building a residential village for its students. After the university skipped town, they left the village for the new B2 tenants, the University of Arizona.

The set up for each dorm building was a 3-bedroom/3-bathroom flat with a common area, and an attached residential assistant suite. I wasn't lucky enough to get the RA room, but the whole situation was interesting nonetheless. The dormitory village was situated adjacent to the B2, both separated by a small footpath leading down to the sphere's valley. Being in the middle of the desert, we were instructed not to leave the outside doors ajar, as skunks and snakes could sneak in.

Living situations aside, the real fascinating part of the visit was, of course, the Biosphere itself. On Wednesday evening, after the morning and afternoon sessions concluded, the meeting participants were promised a tour followed by dinner in the B2. With Val as our tour guide, and armed with a portable speaker/mic contraption, she led us into what seemed like the spaceship she crashed into Earth with, as she had many stories about it.

The first room was the living quarters of the Biospherians, which had a very nice kitchen and the original dining room set, complete with a fancy granite-top table. From the living quarters, the group embarked on its excursion into the wonderful world of artificial eco-systems. I was excited, like the anticipation of opening a Christmas present you've wanted for years.

Walking through the door from the living quarters, you could see the familiar expanse of white tubing, but this view was different, as I was on the inside of the glass panes. I was officially in the Biosphere. The sad truth, however, was I was fifteen years too late on opening this present.

Val took us through the savanna, overlooking an artificial ocean. You could hear the waves of the ocean crashing, but that was pretty much it, the trees stood still (they never replicated wind) and there were no longer animals roaming the Biosphere. Next was the desert, where cactus and crickets ruled the land. The irony being, everything in the desert room was pretty much what was going on outside of the B2 glass. Both of these rooms conveyed a ghost town-like feeling, as if virility and vibrance once existed, the operative word being 'once.'

Following the desert, Val took the tour underground, the concrete basement that supplied all the air conditioning, water mains, and et cetera et cetera that made the B2 eat, drink and breathe. It was like walking through the sewer system tunnels. The basement part really took the fun out of the B2, since it just made it feel like some eccentric billionaire's greenhouse with a underground housing for a huge A/C unit.

Surfacing back to the fake Earth, I found myself in the rain forest room, with Val reciting a story about how some crazy ants infested the Biosphere one summer. Apparently, these things were literally named Crazy Ants, as they attacked an animal's eyes so that they could later ravage the rest of its body.

The final portion of the tour took us to one of the three Lung rooms, which are represented as the round pods as seen in exterior shots of the B2. It wasn't exactly clear to me how the Lungs worked, but supposedly they used a huge diaphram-like room structure to mediate the air pressure for the entire Biosphere. The room was actually kind of terrifying, since it was basically all concrete, with a floating ceiling that was attached by a huge sheet of some black rubbery substance. Standing still in the room, you could see the ceiling actually moving, as if the room was a living creature subtlely inhaling and exhaling.

I left Arizona on Thursday, making it to a meeting in Denver, where I partook in a dinner whose guests included an ex-con, federally indicted NASA official that was appointed by G. W. Bush himself, but that story is for another day. The Biosphere was an unexpected surprise, I got to put some closure on a childhood mystery, as it always seemed like a mythical place. Unfortunately, I kind of wish it actually was one.