Who Lives In The Desert?

[$harkToootth]

I did not search the forum to see if, in the 1% chance, there was already a thread... so who here lives in the desert? What is desert living like?
LA does not count.
Please let it rip... don't feel compelled to follow this order but 1. How long have you lived in the desert (if you don't live there anymore, how long did you live there?) 2. Where did you live before (or did you move any where else and go back?) 3. Favorite things? 4. Challenges? 5. Desert Cuisine? 6. Any cool desert parties with generators (yes, KYUSS reference)?

My best friend's family lives out in Vegas. The pictures he sends, and the hiking look gorgeous. The closest I came to desert living was working on a film set in Palm Springs, CA (I worked the whole time I was there though... did not get to enjoy much else).

Fuck it... Arctic Deserts count too!

[Blackened Soul]

I did not search the forum to see if, in the 1% chance, there was already a thread... so who here lives in the desert? What is desert living like?
LA does not count.
Please let it rip... don't feel compelled to follow this order but 1. How long have you lived in the desert (if you don't live there anymore, how long did you live there?) 2. Where did you live before (or did you move any where else and go back?) 3. Favorite things? 4. Challenges? 5. Desert Cuisine? 6. Any cool desert parties with generators (yes, KYUSS reference)?

My best friend's family lives out in Vegas. The pictures he sends, and the hiking look gorgeous. The closest I came to desert living was working on a film set in Palm Springs, CA (I worked the whole time I was there though... did not get to enjoy much else).

Fuck it... Arctic Deserts count too!

I lived in the Az verde valley area from age 9 to 17. Originally from the Bay Area, moved back after then up to Seattle, still live in WA..
Food: cactus jam is cool.
Things: hiking, thunder storms, rocks
Parties.. Nah but I did go the gathering at a giant medicine wheel on the night of a eclipse once
4? It's hot, poisoners critters, Javelinas, tumble weeds, red dirt gets in every thing, you learn to never lean on a old fence next to a cat us garden..

[$harkToootth]

Thanks m8... (I'm sure you're aware of the genesis of this thread idea )

[Blackened Soul]

Thanks m8... (I'm sure you're aware of the genesis of this thread idea )

yeah couldn't resist
I also blame the atmosphere to my drone obsessions

[$harkToootth]

yeah couldn't resist
I also blame the atmosphere to my drone obsessions

You're not the only one... I've read a bunch of La Monte Young interviews through the years... Maybe not technically the desert but the plains? He attributed the landscape, the power lines, and living in a log cabin (the wind blowing between the logs) to his life long obsession... THE DRONE!

[01010111]

I technically grew up in a desert (Northern Utah)? There was sagebrush, wheatgrass, -40F winters, 100+F summers, heavy snow in the winter, lots of good hiking/camping, parties in Utah are kinda lame.

If it wasn’t Utah I’d recommend it if you’re cool with fighting the terrible weather?

The landscape inspired a different musical direction for me. The landscape was so big and grand, and the only music I associated previously with mountains and rural landscapes was folk. So, I wanted to make “big” music, music big enough to fill the vast emptiness.

[$harkToootth]

Thanks M9-1. I'm pretty into shitty winters. Considering moving to Vermont (total empty threat ).
I've been told to go to Utah by many people.

Off topic... how is Korea treating you?

[01010111]

Utah’s gorgeous, just avoid the people

Korea’s an interesting place. Initially the food’s excellent, but after a while everything is either sweet or spicy. There’s not much that survived the war, so, everything’s fairly new (the palaces/temples are mostly just recreations of what they were). I still haven’t gotten over the culture shock, overall it’s given me exposure to ideas and experiences I never would have seen or imagined in the US.

[repoman]

I want to live in the desert. I've been thinking about moving to Tucson, although the months of summer scare me. Tough to find a desert area that has somewhat consistent temps through the year, I guess CA desert kinda does.

St George area of Utah looks interesting.

[jubal81]

Been living in the Central Washington scrub-steppe desert for a few years. It's beautiful in its own way and there are a lot of sunny days, but I miss trees and forests. I can be in an alpine forest in less than an hour, so I can go get some tree time when I need it.

Dry air feels nice, though, and it's good for guitars. Food options are not good, but the beer is next-level as most of the world's hops are grown here.

[cantremember]

I live in the Phoenix area and have been here about 25 years. Its absolutely miserable in the summer time and it lasts from about the beginning of May till the middle of October most years. The weather in the winter is very nice and rarely gets below freezing. The only thing that sucks about the winter is we get a ridiculous amount of snowbirds. There are tons of hiking spots that are within driving distance of the valley and if you wanna escape the heat and do some hiking in the summer the Sedona/Flagstaff area is beautiful. We have some good food spots around but most aren't anything to write home about and we have several local breweries that are for the most part all pretty top notch.

[Chankgeez]

LA does not count.

Do cultural deserts count?

… or food deserts?

… or even Thai food deserts?



(… or Antonioni films?)

(… or Zurlini films?)

[Blackened Soul]

if you wanna escape the heat and do some hiking in the summer the Sedona/Flagstaff area is beautiful.

Yeah flag is a nice break for sure, mid summer around Sedona is still overly warm but you do have places like slide rock to cool off at... Having to go down to Phoenix was alway brutal... Camping down there is neat though

[$harkToootth]

(… or Antonioni films?)

(… or Zurlini films?)

You really know the way to my heart. Yes, they count now.
Thanks to everyone posting! This is fun for me to read into!

[Lurker13]

UofA alum here. I lived in Tucson in the early '90s, and it wasn't too different from Phoenix, except usually not quite as hot in the summer. I think our typical summer high was 107 F, but there always seemed to be one or two days in August that the mercury climbed up to 117 F. It didn't cool down much at night, either.

The city is in a valley surrounded by mountains, and the Santa Catalinas across the north of the city are beautiful, especially in the winter when the snowline comes down low enough to leave snow on the mountaintops. In the summer we had thunderstorms roll in for 20 minutes every afternoon. In the Autumn we would sometimes get drizzling rain, which seemed to be a tradition on the first day of every Fall semester.

I tried hiking in the Santa Catalinas once. I parked at a dead end street in the foothills and made my way up the south face. I think I ended up on Rattlesnake Peak. I sat up there for a while and tried to imagine what it was like when only the native Americans lived there, meaning I tried to blot out every man-made object from my mind. It was an impossible task, I could hear traffic and there were helicopters and airplanes and emergency sirens, but it was still a fun exercise. The Sun was starting to get low when I left, and I got lost. I wandered down several of the wrong arroyos before I finally found my way back to my car just before sunset. After that I mostly hiked at Gates Pass, which is much more accessible. I am grateful that I never stumbled into a sidewinder, let a long a nest of them, or lost my footing and rolled downhill through hundreds of cacti.


There are a lot of other outdoor activities, like mountain biking, and if you drive far enough, canoeing. In fact, Tucson was one of the most bicycle friendly cities in the country. Most of the major roads had bicycle lanes, and there was a city ordinance that required bicycle lanes to be added to any street that was widened. You can also drive up to Mt. Lemon. It's high enough to have a pine forest, which makes for a refreshing break from the desert. Below is a picture of the Mt. Lemon Highway.

Tucson was gang infested back then, especially the south side. You didn't go south of 22nd Ave without body armor. There were carjackings in the news every night and murders every week. Even the north side had junkie neighborhoods were crimes were rampant, and Fraternity Row was notorious for date rape.

I never went to any generator parties, because I was unaware that such things existed. It seems ironic now that I lived in the desert and missed out on that whole desert rock scene, but nobody I knew ever said anything about it. Goth seemed to be the main underground culture in Tucson at the time. There were small clubs that had local bands on weekends, but most of the big clubs were just DJed dance clubs. Also, being a university town, there were some small theaters, although I didn't partake in their theatrics...and now I kind of regret that.

The Mexican food was good. You could go to a grocery store and find Chicano ladies selling their homemade food right outside. I bought some homemade tomales from a lady who came to my apartment complex and sold them door to door. I stopped doing that after a friend told me she had gotten food poisoning from a lady selling homemade Mexican food, but it sure was good.