8 Details to Notice on a Research Trip

I just returned from a book tour. I got to go to Salt Lake City and Phoenix. I’ve never written a story in Salt Lake, but Phoenix was the home of Eli McShane, who some of you might know as Papa Eli from Captives. When I set out to write that series, I started with a book called Thirst, which was an apocalyptic novel about the Great Pandemic. My main character was Eli and the friends from his youth group, who had been on an outdoor survival trip when the Great Pandemic struck. They returned home and found Phoenix burning and everyone infected with a deadly virus.

During the offers and negotiations for that book and its spin-off Captives, my publisher threw out Thirst and instead bought the dystopian trilogy. And so Thirst never got finished. But I did write about 40,000 words of that story before I found out that the publisher didn’t want it. And before those 40,000 words, I spent a lot of hours researching Phoenix.

And I got to go there last week!

I confess, I didn’t do too bad on my research, most of which was done online and in emails to relatives who live there. But while I was there last weekend, my senses were on high alert for those details that one can only get when one is standing in that place. So I’m going to share some of my observations with you, mostly about Phoenix, but some Salt Lake City details too.

Stephanie and I have blogged about research trips before. Here is a post Steph wrote about a research trip she went on. And here is a post that I wrote about how to do a research interview. But today, I wanted to give you eight details to notice while on a research trip.

1. Sight
The first thing I noticed about Salt Lake was the mountains all around the city. It reminded me of the mountains in Alaska. It gave the city a majestic feel. The first thing I noticed about Phoenix was that it was bright, brown, and very warm. It got up to 102 the day were were talking at schools. I also noticed that, while Salt Lake City is a big place, Phoenix is bigger. There were a lot of people in Phoenix and a lot of cars on the freeways. Salt Lake was greener: more trees. Salt Lake also seemed to have more space in terms of land in someone’s yard, where Phoenix was a little more cramped.

2. Sound
There was plenty to hear on the trip. One big one that stood out to me in Salt Lake on the drive from the airport to my hotel was the ding, ding, ding of the TRAX train while we sat in the car at stoplights. In Phoenix, crickets sang the night away.

3. Smells
When we got to the high school in Phoenix, outside was the sweet smell of alyssum flowers. I didn’t know what they were, but Lorie Ann Grover did. So I emailed that detail to myself to add to Thirst if I ever get to go back and finish it.

Also, do you know how it gets when you’re someplace really hot and the asphalt smells? Phoenix had that too.

4. The feel
Phoenix was hot. It’s the kind of place where you don’t go anywhere without a water bottle. And the kind of place where you have to open your car doors to let some air in, when they’ve been sitting in the sun a while.

5. Tastes
We ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant and had real sopaipillas, which my husband saw on the show Psych and had tried to make just last week. The real sopaipillas were so much better! But, good try, Brad.

6. The people
Both cities had varied demographics, but Phoenix had a bigger Hispanic population. Also, it seemed to me that the people in Phoenix were a little older, while they were overall a little younger in Salt Lake.

7. The buildings
While the majority of homes in Salt Lake were sided in wood, the typical house in Phoenix was stucco with a tile roof. The school in Salt Lake was average to me, but in Phoenix, the students’ lockers and the lunch tables were outside. Both places had a downtown area with some fairly tall buildings. Phoenix’s downtown was a little bigger. But I had the privilege of doing an event in the Salt Lake Public Library. Check out this building!

Lorie Ann Grover, Lisa T. Bergren, me, and Jonathan Friesen outside

Our escort Jim, inside the library

8. The plants
While Salt Lake City has plenty of trees and forests, Phoenix is a desert filled with palm trees and cactus. Phoenix also has these adorable little barrel cactus that are so soft you can pet them. I guess that’s why they’re also called petting cactus.

They’re so soft!

What state or country do you live in? Give us some details about your home that might be interesting to a writer. You don’t have to give all eight, but here are mine.

Eastern Oregon
1. Sight- This is high desert, so there are a lot of small mountains covered in sagebrush. Lots of deer. More cows than people. In fact, cows have the right of way out on our country roads.
2. Sound- Every day at noon, the city fire alarm bell rings, telling us all that it’s lunch time!
3. Smells- In winter, you can smell chimney smoke outside since so many burn wood here.
4. Feel- It’s usually quite nice here, weather-wise. Dry. Sunny. Rain and snow come rarely. Though if you’re down by the river or creek, there are lots of mosquitoes, and you will get bit!
5. Tastes- This is a hunting/ranching town, so lots of people eat venison and their own cows.
6. The people- We look pretty much like everyone else, though there are quite a bit more cowboy boots, cowboy hats, and Wrangler jeans here than in the rest of Oregon.
7. The buildings- Things are old here. Think Old West. Our downtown area has several murals to show our heritage.
8. The plants- While the general area has lots of sagebrush, there are trees here, and it’s a short drive up into the mountains to find the forest. This area used to have several mills and did a lot of logging. No more.

Mural in Canyon City, Oregon, not far from where I live.