In my notes, I have written down the name of a blog entry. Mother and daughter it says, but nothing else. I also have a picture to illustrate this entry on my tablet, but no memory of what this entry was supposed to be about. It was probably something smart, but that’s the problem with biting off more than I can chew (like I always do): waiting too long after the event to write about it equals memory loss and a forced style.

So I choose to accept that time has passed since I came home from Phoenix, and that I shouldn’t half-ass something just because. I’ll just upload the funny photo and go on to the final entry of this story of my travels in North America.

Anthropology, one of the coolest store chains in the US, had a beautiful dress. As it happens, both mom and I fell for it, but it turned out that there was only one dress left of the size that bot me and mom claimed to have. I got the dress, on account of being the one who tried it on first. It could have been pretty funny, though, if both of us had bought it.

I have a tendency to get really attached to the shoes I wear while traveling. They become my friends, and considering how much I tend to walk while touristing, they really are patient and generous friends. so I just want to take this opportunity to thank the shoes that took me from Edmonton, Alberta, to Phoenix, Arizona.

The new acquaintance, bought just before I left Stockholm. There’s no denying it, comfortable and sturdy Gore-Tex shoes are the best thing to have as a backpacker. I’ll never forget that.

I think this was the last trip these pretty little white shoes did. They’ve taken me through many a warm Stockhom summer’s day. They’ve climbed the hills of La Paz with me, and now they took me all around California. It’s time for them to retire.

One of the most exciting things about traveling is eating the local food. But, to be honest, much of the food in the States is just strange.

Lots of sugar, but surprisingly many things that are fat free. Or deep fried.

Like this corn dog I had at a festival in Windsor, north of San Francisco. A hot dog, dressed in dough – deep fried. I honestly don’t understand.

Or this pizza, at a restaurant in San Francisco that claimed to be Italian. This was no Italian pizza. Too much cheese, far too much dough. Not that I complain about the cheese. The thick crust just misses the hole point with pizza.

Let me put it like this: I have no problem understanding how obesity has become such a public health issue in the US.

Some things were amazing, though. Like the diner breakfasts. The pies. The sushi is the best I’ve ever had, and the tacos in San Francisco were incredible. And I loved the fro yo, with blueberries and crunshed mint chocolate. Sarah really transfered her obsession of fro yo to me.

30/7: My last meal in North America consisted of a variety of melons. Because that is something that they have plenty of in Arizona. Melons love the desert, just like me.

A cantaloupe, a water melon and a Santa Claus melon. Nothing could be more perfect on a quiet, hot night, on a roof terrace in the middle of Phoenix. My last night of heat. On the morrow, I would be gone.

Tic Tac. Famous. Sweet. Colourful. And elegant. Mr. P likes.

Phoenix is an odd city. It’s like there’s no gravity, no center. The streets are wide and the houses are bare. And they just go on and on and on, there’s no limit, no mountains or trees to limit the growth. It’s a city made for cars and air conditioning. It did rain when we were there, but mostly it was sunny and hot. Temperatures above 110°F were nothing out of the ordinary. 43°C for us Europeans.

The view from Vladimiro’s balcony. That’s downtown Phoenix.

They did have public transportation, the Light Rail and busses – but they were a joke. Everyone that has the choice, drives a car. The busses and the Light Rail just pick up what’s left. It’s sad, really. Both for Phoenix, and our environment.

In Phoenix, if you want to go shopping, you go to one of all the malls. There, the huge stores are air conditioned and outside the air is sprayed with water. I don’t really get the point with this artificial mist, seeing as humidity tends to make high temperatures feel even warmer. But what do I know. There are many things with Phoenix that I don’t understand.

The wide wide streets are lined with palm trees.

There’s just too much space for me to feel like I’m in a city. This is just a perpetual suburb.

But the sun going down behind the thick rain clouds is beautiful, even in Phoenix.

It’s not that I didn’t like Phoenix. I just – it puzzles me. It lacks style and density. I must admit that I very much prefer the cities of the Pacific Northwest. And San Francisco. Always San Francisco.

30/7: When I was a teenager, I had an online friend called Daniel. We e-mailed and talked through MSN Messenger, and sometimes we even sent real, old school letters. Our korrespondence got really intense at times, while at others it could take months without me hearing from him. When I was 19, we met once, and a couple of years later he moved to Stockholm, but we never really managed to move our friendship from the digital out into the real world. There just was something with our communicatin that worked in writing, but not in spoken words. Now, I haven’t heard from him for years.

But back when we were the best of online friends, we sent mixtapes to each other. In one of the mixtapes, Daniel had recorded a song by Simon & Garfunkel. So long, Frank Lloyd Wright. And in the letter he wrote that Wright was an architect and that far too few songs were written in honour of the creators of our living spaces.

So, thanks to Daniel and Simon & Garfunkel, I knew who Frank Lloyd Wright was when we were told that he’d built his winter home in the middle of the desert on the edge of Scottsdale, thirty minutes drive from downtown Phoenix. Taliesin West. It was a school of architecture, and for a pretty juicy sum, one could get a guided tour around the premises. Mom and me had a day to spare, so we went to check it out.

It’s an incredible sight, the desert. Wright chose an impressive site to build his winter residence on.

And the buildings melted right into the landscape.

You see, things grow in the desert too.

One of the studios.

A classroom.

The red lecture hall.

The entrance to the theatre.

The theatre. Apparently, Wright loved to cabaret.

Art.

A Palo Verde Tree, the green trunked state tree of Arizona.

I’ve never felt anything special for art in the form of paintings. But architecture is something that really fascinates me. In a sense, it’s the most practical, concrete type of art, and it’s all around us. A society with good, innovative and playful architects, is a society with happier people. I believe in the power of architecture and city planning.

So, not surprisingly, I enjoyed our tour of Taliesin West. It was my kind of museum.

29/7: Another impressive thing that Phoenix has to offer, is the Desert Botanical Garden. You know I love botanical gardens, but this was something really special. I guess it’s part of my fascination for deserts. I just love succulents.

27/7: The public transportation in Phoenix consists of busses and the Metro Light Rail. Vladimiro calls it the Fried Brain Express. One day on the way to meet up with him for lunch, we learned why.

A man got on the train and sat down facing us. He had a bandaged hand and still the hospital wristband on. He started talking to us, and at first he seemed like a pretty nice guy, maybe not completely mentally well, but harmless enough. He said that both mom and me were pretty, and then I think he started flirting with mom a little bit.

Until he said: “I could kill you, you know. But I won’t. Because you’re beautiful. But I could.”

It didn’t feel like a threat, not really, but Daniel stood up anyway, as a shield between us and the crazy man. I think he was just a crazy man that didn’t know what he was saying, but still it felt nice when we reached tye university and could get off the train.

When we told Vladimiro about the incident, he laughed and said: “What did I tell you? It’s so hot here that some people get their brains fried, and those are the ones that take the train. The Fried Brain Express.”

There wasn’t really any arguing against that.

Petrified tree trunks. Fascinating. I should have become a geologist.