"Man, this is ridiculous!" This phrase comes sputtering out of my mouth as I touch the steering wheel of my truck on Saturday morning. It feels as if the material connected to the wheel has had a hair dryer about a quarter inch away from it , on high, for an hour. Oh...and by the way... it's only 9:15am. So I sit in my metal transportation, gasoline exploding, oil diminishing, air flying out of the little vents, just waiting for words like "bearable" or "just cool enough" to set my day into motion. 

We moved into this house about ...hmmm... two and a half years ago now? We love it, lot's of great potential and we've done a lot of great things to reciprocate smiles from its' interior and out-terior. One problem that we face with this beautiful dwelling though, is that we bought it with NO GARAGE. Additionally, we have also inherited a 3-car driveway. Man, thats actually somewhere around 16 tons of concrete! Holy crap! O.K. so if I wanted to host a nighttime "hot" spot where people could come and lay down on a warm slab at midnight in August...cool. If I wanted to test just how hot I could get the tires on my truck to get through out the day...awesome. If I needed to get some extra income by having Bikram (hot) Yoga being done a dusk in a 100 degree 9PM atmosphere...you got it.

OK, sorry, you get the idea. Our driveway is hot, and stays hot throughout the night (sorry...people in Alaska...this is a terrible thing here in the desert). So what to do? Bust apart our nice "Big Room" where we store our camping, climbing, biking, hiking gear? Naw. Deal with it by starting our cars 5 minutes early in the morning? Nope, did that in the winter in Flagstaff. Build a carport to cover the driveway? Great idea but a little too intrusive for me, and too close to the curb anyway. I think I'll just kick that damn tenant out that is causing all of our problems (see Concrete).



~SIDE TRIP~   

There are a few other reasons why removing the concrete driveway from your house might benefit pout beautiful Sonoran desert city:

1. Stormwater management - Normal concrete driveways will take any source of water that ends up gracing their presence and shuffle it down to the asphalt tributaries known as streets. OK fine...so what? Well, these driveways are not "so fresh and so clean" to quote a great inebriated dancing song. They have on them wonderful technologies (seriously) like oil, brake pad dust, freon, animal feces and other chemical and physical trashes to choose from. These substances are now gone from your life...right? Well lets think about where their eventuality lands. They travel into the streets, make a left on cave creek rd. a right on Bell, so on and so forth, until they are either accumulated in a wash or possibly a river basin. These substances get accumulated and intensified into the ground water, and wait! thats where we pump out water for treatment for our city. crappy.

2. Heat Island - So by now, a lot of people in the Southwest have heard of this thing called a heat island. 'Nice' you might be thinking, ' a tropical island in the southwest where I can lay uinder an umbrella and take in beauty and relaxation?' Ummm...No. This island is, as my man Bob Marley called, a "Concrete Jungle". So much expansion (some people actually call it Progress) has occurred in our desert community, that we are actually feeling effects in both temperature AND weather patterns! Yep, those Monsoon storms have really changed in the past 10 years! So the effect of concrete in the desert has been to absorb the heat of the day, and then hold onto it throughout the night...yuck Well, my little neighborhood is covered by this great old technology. Concrete everywhere...and where its not concrete, it is it's little sneaky cousin gravel. Seriously? where do you actually see large plots of gravel in a healthy desert? Anyway, my property has been heating up, heating up heating...arggghh! this steering wheel is ridiculous. I want to RETURN the soil, FREE the soil, EMANCIPATE the soil! (rebel call anyone? no?) 

3. Beauty to the People - Here's a quick profile of most (including mine) yards that claim responsible  "xeriscape". I have light grey gravel, followed by more light colored gravel followed by a large light grey driveway. Yep, I have a Saguaro, a Barrel, and a few spotty native shrubs... but then just gravel and a slightly stained drive. Hmmm... I heard once that contrast is good for the eye. I agree. So instead of a drab grey throughout, lets get a little different. If we all had grass in the front (yuck) then the grey would maybe be a good mix. - I remember living in Jersey-  So I'm gonna beautify. Wood chips...nice! What a great color contrast. What a nice change from *Saguaro...gravel... Prickly pear...gravel...bird of paradise...gravel...driveway...next.* I can now actually create a different popping look, one that 'might' mimic a little more of the soil I see in healthy areas, mesquite bosque's and riparian banks. 

!! FREE THE SOIL !!

So here is my little journey. A tiny speck in time of my Desert existence where I as the player am trying to take an active role in regeneration. Regeneration of Soil... Regeneration of a neighborhood lot... Regeneration of conscious and Regeneration of Soul.