So after many years of no contact at all, and several years of a long-distance relationship, somehow this weekend I find myself in Tucson visiting Dave Magoon. A week ago I had no thought of this, and today I am here. Life is funny like that.

Earlier this week I was looking up Dave on the University of Arizona website, and noticed on their homepage a reference to the UA/Mars project. Apparently researchers at UA are working with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab on a research project searching for evidence of life on Mars with another robotic probe on Mars. Quite impressive.

Until I got here. Now I see that Tucson is well qualified for this type of research for life in a barren, hostile environment, since IT IS ONE ITSELF!! I'm not trying to diss Tucson or anything; it's very beautiful. It's just that it's in a desert, and it seems that every existent plant and animal is somehow TRYING TO KILL ME.

In retrospect, I must say that I've never spent much time in a desert before. Life in the desert is a little bit different. Let me elucidate.

When I arrived last night at 9:40pm local time (the flight was a few minutes late), the captain on the plane nonchalantly said, "We welcome you to Tucson. It's 9:27 local time, overcast, with a temperature of 99 degrees." It's 9:30 at night and it's NINETY-NINE degrees.

After getting my baggage, I phone Dave and find out that he's circling the airport, so in a few minutes we are united after many years of absence. Neither of us can remember just how many years. But when we pull up to his place and get out of the car, he pulls a flashlight out of his pocket to scan the ground as we walk up the path to his bungalow looking for RATTLESNAKES. We don't see any. So when we get to his porch he starts unlocking the door, and crawling up the wall right next to the door is a TARANTULA. "Hmmm," says Dave, "it's monsoon season. They'll probably be a lot more of those." Sweet.

We manage to get inside and leave the tarantula outside, and then Dave says, "Sometimes a lizard or two gets into the house, but they can't hurt you. Unless it's an orange one. Then it might be a GILA MONSTER."

So after a restful night of sleep without being bitten by any indigenous poisonous creepy crawlies, we go out in the morning and get in Dave's Jeep to go hiking in the mountains, and I notice there are electrical extension cords hanging from the carport in front of the cars, so I ask Dave what they are for. "Oh, those are to shine lights into your engine compartment so that the PACK RATS don't climb up there, make a nest, and chew up all your engine wiring. That's kind of expensive."

So we go up to some trail in the Catalina mountains where the rocks are flipping off the city of Tucson. It's a perfect day for a climb, not too hot and overcast so we don't get toasted by the sun (undoubtedly in on the whole aggressive hostility motif between Tucson and me). So as we're making our way up the mountain Dave casually mentions other potential inconveniences like ROCK SLIDES, POISONOUS FROGS, JUMPING CACTI, and MOUNTAIN LIONS. We mostly avoid these pitfalls. I did have to pull some cactus needles out of my hand when I inadvertently brushed it near a plant with evil intentions, but other than that the outing was uneventful and enjoyable.

Welcome to the desert.