On The Move to On The Road

There are two metropolitan areas of considerable size in Arizona that should not exist. Phoenix, the fifth largest city in the United States, is one of them. Spread out over a vast desert adjacent to the intersection of the mostly dry Salt and Gila rivers, Phoenix has to import much of its water from the Colorado River to sustain its massive population.

Tucson is the second metro area that should not exist, growing from a small Indian village along the banks of the Santa Cruz River in pre-Columbian times to a metro area that spreads out below the Catalina and Rincon mountain ranges to accommodate nearly a million residents. The reason it should not exist is that the Santa Cruz River stopped flowing years ago, and until the Central Arizona Project brought the same Colorado River water to Tucson in 1993 it was the largest city in the United States that depended entirely on ground water. The simple truth is that more water has been pumped out of the ground in Tucson than can ever be replaced, and it is only a matter of time before the desert reclaims its own.

It is this place we have chosen for a home, and in the last four months we have lived here I have often wondered why. We left Bisbee in rather a hurry last April when we were lucky enough to find a cash buyer from our home. Neighbor disputes, an unstable rock wall behind our house, and the steady erosion caused by the drainage subway in front of the place all convinced us that we needed to bail on this little town. Another factor in our decision to leave was the deteriorating infrastructure of Bisbee. There are simply not enough people paying enough taxes to maintain the roads, sewage lines, water lines, and electrical grid. The slow decline of these public necessities would be depressing for anyone considering Bisbee as a home, but I must admit the climate is enough to seduce the most hardened skeptic into giving it a try. Unfortunately for us, the beautiful year-round weather was little comfort during the year we spent in quarantined isolation.

And so we came to Tucson. We found a really nice old adobe home, built in 1947, with red concrete floors and the old fashioned crank-out vertical windows. This historic home is somewhat famous, having been described by author Jack Kerouac in his novel On The Road. This house was owned by a "beat" writer named

Alan Harrington when Kerouac visited in 1949 and he subsequently wrote about it in On The Road. The property came with a wall completely surrounding the house, and a nice little courtyard in the back where we quickly established our shade structures and outdoor shower facility. We live right next to the ruins of Fort Lowell, a military post active during the Apache wars of the nineteenth century. Since it is a historic district, no houses can be built that do not conform to certain design standards and the neighborhood looks like an old Mexican barrio, which it is. We are less than a mile from a supermarket and pharmacy, and to the south of us stands the largest hospital/medical complex in southern Arizona, Tucson Medical Center. Even with all these things so near by, the feel of the place is one of rural living, almost like being way out in the uninhabited desert.

We live in a city that should not be here and adapt as best we can. We make our water work twice: shower runoff goes directly to the trees in the courtyard; dishwater from the kitchen sink gets dumped on the cactus in the front yard, and rinse water from the washing machine is piped via the hose to various plants that look as if they need it. If Tucson is truly doomed, it will likely not happen in our lifetimes and, by being responsible stewards of the water we currently have, we can contribute to the delay of the inevitable.