In which my wife and I find that Phoenix is the schizo town that can't figure out where it wants the cool people to go, and we get ready for Spring Training.
Matthew Polly, in a Slate article describing the beauty of St. Petersburg, Russia, chalks a lot of the city's soul up to its decades of oppressions. He says, "Democracies, while far more pleasant, leave behind places like Phoenix." Sad, but true. I'd like to back my newly-adopted city up, though, with this thought--the Valley of the Sun has about 160 years of catching up to do.
My wife and I were struck by the awesomeness that is San Diego's Balboa Park while on a short vacation there in January. On our return, we thought, "Surely the country's fifth-largest city and fourteenth-largest metropolitan area
must have a place where all the cool kids go. You know, where people play music on the street corner for money, and there are overpriced hot dogs." Perhaps I added the hot dogs myself. We're still kind of on the search, but we think we've got it nailed down. Here were our steps:
1. Actual downtown Phoenix/Copper Square. This was sorely disappointing. Copper Square is not really a destination. The science museum area is fun, and there are some people around, but all the attractions are things you have to pay mad cheddar for (the sports arenas, sci museum, other museum-type dealies). There
was a monster-truck rally
downtown, and a man selling bottled-water on the street, so that was kinda close.
2. Encanto Park. This is apparently one of the "Phoenix Points of Pride", which means that it's something the government pays bank to upkeep. It was alright. It pretty much just looked like a city park, though, with a mini-amusement park in the middle. We did not go to the middle, as we were not looking for mini-amusements. They did, however, have paddle boats.
3. Papago Park. This is the home of "Hole-in-the-Rock", a geological formation of rock with a hole in it. We hiked up to the top of the rock, and saw the hole. It was ten whole minutes of awesome. Then we saw a rabbit and a roadrunner and some old people having a party. Not really much to speak of, but there's a lot more of this park we didn't see.
4. Mill Avenue District. This is pretty much what we were looking for. The main drag of Tempe (home to ASU) has a bunch of hippies and artists, buskers and bums. It's got the funny-looking stores etc. It's not really well developed yet, but it's headed in the right direction.
There isn't really a central meeting point in the city, but instead of there being no city center, there appears to be multiple. Enlightened, but slightly disheartened by this information, we're going to get what we can out of life here by going to Spring Training, which apparently draws quite the crowd. Awesome.
