June 2010

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It’s so green here…

If it’s hard to remember the searing heat of the desert within air conditioned Nogales houses or even chilly Phoenix newsrooms, it’s impossible to remember so many miles away in the lush countryside of Pennsylvania. Yet the same story that led me south repeatedly is now bringing me north for a few days.

When I get home there’s a few loose end interviews, then writing and editing, then more editing. At the moment that’s all very far away. I’m realizing how accustomed I’ve gotten to Phoenix, because I can’t stop noticing how different this is – after all, it’s so green here…

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Look up in the bar and restaurant area at Maynards, and your view will be this intriguing pattern. While you eat, blues will be spilling from the speakers of what used to be a historic train depot. My first time there, I ate lunch on the patio while trains passed; this time, dinner in the restaurant.

Either way, it’s all about great food…

great company…

and a great time.

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looking forward

looking left

looking right

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Here’s what I’ve been up to – to see the rest of the my team’s updates, go here.

Amid southern Arizona’s vast landscape of dry foothills, valleys and mountains it’s easy to feel very small.

The people that I’m writing about move through this land, sometimes on a daily basis — they include hikers and hunters, law enforcement and humanitarian volunteers, and the people illegally crossing Arizona’s section of the U.S.-Mexico border.

With the land playing so much of a role in the stories I'm reporting, I decided early on that I needed to see it and experience it for myself. On my first trip I was confident that I'd kept track of where we'd parked the jeep — only to be completely wrong. During the second trip I witnessed dramatic shifts in weather and vowed to be better prepared next time. Most recently, exhausted from the heat, I felt my head swimming despite all my efforts to stay fit, rested and hydrated.

There are rewards — glimpses of elusive wildlife, the fiery wildflowers, unforgettable sunsets. But people who underestimate the harshness of this area are taking a huge risk.

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I’ve been putting in some work on my practice mock-up website, using material from the winter break trip to Dubai. This reminded me that the trip blog still needed a little tweaking here and there – fixing links and photo alignment, covering any gaps in the travel. I’ll be transplanting a few of the entries like this one over here and adding to them, because this work has me remembering the trip in a way I haven’t had time to do since the semester started, and boy, did we see some incredible things – some, like Dubai Mall‘s aquarium, have even made the news since we were there! In this map view, the Burj Khalifa building site is still under construction right next door…

How does an aquarium work in a mall, you may ask? Think of it this way – what if you had to walk through this :

to get to this?

OK, at Dubai Mall it’s more like walk past, but it’s still the first mall that I’ve ever been to that had actual sharks in it. Along with all the stores and a little thing called the Burj Khalifah, there’s a three story aquarium featuring everything from otters to crabs to the people who go diving in the largest tank. An aquarium ticket lets you walk through the main tank’s tunnel and see the rest of the store from inside.

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On my first overnight research trip to Tucson, friends took me to downtown to eat. It’s funky, it’s got an attitude, it’s probably not for everyone, but this place had me at two words : BLT pasta.

These photos were taken last Wednesday on one of many follow-up visits.

I’m sure they have other great dishes – in fact, I’ve heard people say they quite enjoy their food – but I think I’m set. And yes, the leftovers are awesome fresh out of the hotel microwave the morning after.

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