Beth and Barrys Excellent Tourbus Adventure

Update on the Excellent Tourbus Adventure. We enjoyed the grand circle tour of Tucson’s Oro Valley as we made a misguided, albeit game attempt to follow the IPhone’s confidently voiced instructions regarding the location of the University of Arizona’s Biosphere 2 project. Try as we might, we just couldn't maneuver the Polar Prince (Barry’s new Ford F-150 with heated, cooled and massaging front seats) through the backyards of the million dollar desert homes blocking our path through the hills and canyons of this Sonoran Desert wonderland. Dead end after dead end finally convinced us (and by “us” I mean “him”) to go back to the highway and perhaps look for the usual roadside attraction signs that seem to inevitably arise when there is a (Wow!) roadside attraction…

All this to accomplish a long-time wish to walk in the footsteps of Pauly Shore with a visit to what Barry continues to insist on calling the Bio-Dome. For those of you with a similar heart’s desire, just follow SR 77 way out into the desert and you will, in fact, encounter the promised Roadside Attraction indicator signs. It is quite an operation and we made our way into the visitor’s center, purchased our Senior Discount (ugh..really?) tickets and were whisked away by very enthusiastic senior citizen docents to tour Biosphere 2. The complex is absolutely incredible and in an Exit Survey taken after our tour it was nearly impossible to answer the prompt to name our favorite exhibit. And yes, for those of you with the compelling desire to know, parts of the 1996 Pauly Shore movie, Bio-Dome were filmed right on site.

Our tour began with a 5-minute presentation by an entomologist from the University who presented on the charisma of bugs and their misaligned reputation among humans. Did you know, for instance that bugs make up approximately 80% of all species on earth and represent the most bio-diverse and helpful of the world’s species? You probably didn’t really realize how important this information and presentation would be – I know I sure wish I’d paid better attention – I mean it was only 5 minutes of my life and it was an information–packed, creatively clever presentation – and I really, really do wish I’d paid more attention…

After watching a 20 minute video on the history and mission of Biosphere 2 (can anyone tell me where or what is Biosphere 1?) we schlepped along with a tour group now joined by the single, over-arching goal of investigating the purpose of this multi-million dollar wonder of modern engineering – in fact I gotta tell you this thing ought to be on that show – its that amazing. We trekked up and down stairs, through air locks and across platforms to view the tropical ocean, the rain forest, the tropical desert and down, down into the bowels of the complex to view the GIANT swamp coolers and enormous biomechanical lung that provide the life support for this world within a world (cause Biosphere 1 is our world – Planet Earth and Biosphere 2 is this man-made, genius engineered world within the world).

I’m not always a fan of spending tax money on figuring out how to live on Mars or determining what dung beetle can roll the most poop but I have to say this complex, which appears to be wholly privately funded, does a great job of explaining how each of these things and a million more of its research projects are critically important to each of us right now and, perhaps even more importantly, will significantly enhance our ability to survive the Zombie Apocolypse.

Maybe the most amazing part of the tour was what I think they called the Giant Lung, which is exactly what it sounds like. It is deep in the basement and this picture doesn’t even begin to do it justice. The room is HUGE, bigger than HUGE really and has an immense disc suspended from the ceiling with attached legs. It is surrounded by enormous rubber bladder-like things that allow the building to breathe. It was explained to us that without this structure the building would explode due to the build-up of gases caused by the near-total seal achieved in the engineering. The last demonstration of the marvel was a group yelp that echoed again and again and again – I’ve never heard anything like it other than to tell you that even the quietest conversation echoed through the cavernous space like the feedback of the announcers microphone in an old-school baseball stadium. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

Getting out of the room was liking walking against hurricane
force winds on the bow of a ship! Wow!

We exited the formal tour (no more hand holding or guided explanations – and this becomes important in about 3 more minutes) and entered the self-initiated portion of the exploration. We especially enjoyed the Mars Sustainability Project, which showed me, for the first time ever, the real benefits to some of these NASA projects that I’ve never really gotten behind. It was amazing to peruse the living space of the original inhabitant scientists in the Closed Biosphere Project where they lived for 2 years! And, at the end of the tour they even provided cookies!

Wow! Cookies, cool!! Of course, after such a long, hot and arduous journey of climbing, crouching, stepping and listening a cookie absolutely seemed in order and I bee-lined my way right over to the plate of offerings. Now, I will here admit that I noticed only the cookies – not the display accompanying the cookies – not the signage over the cookies – and certainly not the fact that Barry (the King of All Things Cookie) had moved in the complete opposite direction of the cookies… Assuming he had simply failed to notice the cookies (I mean, hey, you’ve been following along our travails, I mean "travels" as we’ve managed to get lost getting anywhere, right?) well anyway, I assumed he didn’t see the cookies so with my cookie firmly entrenched in my mouth, I picked up a second cookie which I graciously offered my cookie-loving and "supportive" husband…He firmly declined and in response to my wounded “I was being thoughtful with my cookie gathering” look he walked over and pointed to THE SIGN: