Phoenix is crazy.  I thought the Austin area was overbuilt with new housing developments, shopping centers, and strip malls.  Austin has nothing on Phoenix.  Friday we drove the 101 freeway from Scottsdale to Peoria, skirting around the city on the north.  It was like driving through one huge shopping mall.

Saturday we drove out to Buckeye (20 miles west) through yet more shopping malls and strip centers.  There are plenty of new housing developments, some of which have a huge number of vacant houses.  I also saw many “Coming Soon” signs for retail or residential developments that have been abandoned in various stages of completion.

I think what surprises me most is that I can’t see how the number of new homes could even come close to supporting the glut of retail development we saw.  They overbuilt on an astonishing scale.  How they managed to forget the lessons of 20 years ago, when the Phoenix area was one of the hardest hit by the S&L crisis, is beyond me.  I suppose everybody was once again saying, “this time is different.”  It wasn’t.

We managed to arrive in Phoenix during NASCAR weekend.  Phoenix International Raceway is in Avondale, which is right next door to the city of Goodyear, where we want to stay.  But with the race, hotel rates are sky high:  the Super 8 Motel wants $155 per night!  We stayed the first two nights with family in Scottsdale, but it’s 50 miles from the hospital.  Last night we stayed with another family friend out west, but he doesn’t have Internet access and we really do need to be connected.  We’re hoping that we can get a reasonably priced hotel after tonight.

Right now I’m sitting in the Starbucks inside the Safeway grocery store in Goodyear, AZ, connected to their wireless.  Free wifi is a wonderful thing for checking email or making a blog entry, but I don’t think I could do any serious work here.