Not too arid for a duck out of water.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

TEMPE, ARIZ. - On a craggy butte that rises dramatically from behind Sun Devil Stadium, Teri and Rick Schaefer of Salem watched the sun go down Saturday night.

In the distance, airplanes, like a string of white Christmas lights, streamed in and out of Sky Harbor Airport, where Teri's grandparents - Duck alums Carl Gerlinger, 91, and Helen Gerlinger, 90 - would arrive that night to give the family a four-generation Fiesta Bowl presence.

The family is among an estimated 18,000 Duck fans here for Tuesday's Oregon-Colorado game, the winner of which could be voted the No. 1 team in the country by The Associated Press should Nebraska upset unbeaten Miami in Thursday's Rose Bowl game.

And what do such Duck fans find when they get here?

Sunshine? Yep, finally. After a few cloudy days - a couple of the only 35 a year that are not considered "sunny" here - Arizona finally looked and felt like its usual self Sunday: so blessedly pleasant that even a rain-lover like me was seduced to satisfaction by the 70-something temperatures.

Beauty? Yep. In a region that's otherwise as flat as a Monopoly board, red-hued mountains suddenly jut out of nowhere - so real they look fake.

Excitement? Sure. On Saturday, Duck fans were subtly strutting their wings in Tempe area restaurants. Green and yellow flags started showing up on car windows. And fans were having their photos taken in front of Sun Devil Stadium.

On Sunday morning, Oregon's players got their first look inside the stadium, which has been adorned in multicolored nylon banners with a motif that can only be described as "Modern Tostito."

But, hey, it's not as if the Fiesta Bowl has brought this sprawling, cactus-sprinkled place to a standstill. In Sunday's Arizona Republic, advance coverage of the game made Page 13 of the Sports section. And of 25 spectators and volunteers I queried at Saturday's Fiesta Bowl parade, only five could correctly name the two teams playing in the game.

Among the wrong guesses: Colorado-Iowa, Colorado-Florida, Florida-Syracuse, Kansas State-Colorado, Kansas State-Oregon and my personal favorite, "Michigan and somebody."

Bud Briley, a retiree from Mesa, confidently announced it was the "Oregon" (at last, a winner!) "Trojans" against the "Tennessee Spartans" (alas, a short-lived victory).

The 10-story Joey Harrington poster in New York didn't do its magic with this crowd either; only three could name him as the Ducks' quarterback. Four knew UO was in Eugene (though one confidently said it was in Medford) and only three knew Oregon's nickname was the Ducks.

Clearly, the Phoenix-Tempe area has its collective mind on more than the Fiesta Bowl. With a Maricopa County population of 2.9 million people - six in 10 of the state's residents live here - it's not as if the ripples from something like the Fiesta Bowl are going to resound as they do in, say, Boise for the Humanitarian Bowl.

Realize, too, that Tuesday's game is one of 50 Fiesta Bowl Festival events, only a few of which center on the game itself. Technically, the Fiesta Bowl Festival even has another bowl under its umbrella - last Saturday's Insight.com Bowl.

What adds to the `what-game?' sense is that, until today's 2 p.m. pep rally at the Wells Fargo basketball arena, there hasn't been a chance for fans to develop much of a critical mass. Duck followers are spread all over.

The team and "official" UO party are staying about 40 minutes north of the stadium, at a resort hotel called The Fairmont Scottsdale Princess, which hosts the annual Phoenix Open each January on one of its two Tournament Players Club golf courses.

Trust me, this isn't the kind of place where, say, Barrel Man is going to stay or where you get the concierge's attention by blowing on your duck call. This is a place with swaying palm trees, opulent waterfalls, lobby restrooms with rolled individual cloth towels, and price tags that might make you wince.

Though many got package deals, general rates this holiday week are $359 a night or roughly what my round trip airfare cost; if the yellow and green are staying here, the operative word is "green." On Sunday, as a piano player tinkled the keys to "Just the Way You Look Tonight," big-buck Ducks enjoyed a $49-a-plate champagne brunch. Outside, a few Duck lineman lounged in wicker chairs. And, giving this pocket of posh just a hint of Eugene, a man walked casually through a fountain-framed plaza in a suit coat, dress shoes - and jeans.

Tempe and the surrounding areas aren't nearly as posh as Scottsdale, though you can't drive around this place very long without being reminded that it's flush with new money - and without understanding why the airport's so busy. There's an appeal here, though not for everybody.

New construction abounds, complete with full-grown palm trees popped into the ground for ambiance. As you drive nearly anywhere, swanky strip malls - all salmon pink and fake stucco - pass by like the repeating background of a cartoon.

And yet despite a teeming population, it remains - for those not seeking a small-town atmosphere - decidedly livable. The same 2000 Places Rated Almanac that rated Eugene 127th in livability ranked the Phoenix-Mesa area 10th, giving it far higher marks in transportation, climate, arts, recreation, education and jobs. (Unemployment in metropolitan Phoenix is 4.9 percent, compared with 7.4 percent in Oregon.)

In places, the area's visible contrasts with Eugene are far more pronounced than what I saw in France last fall. The grass is brown, except on the dozens of golf courses being nurtured by water through the so-called "winter." The streets are wide. The blocks are long. The signs are low. And the architecture is astute; some freeway sound walls here are more visually appealing than some Eugene buildings; Arizona State University's Gammage Auditorium was designed by no less than Frank Lloyd Wright.

Tempe itself is home to about 150,000 people, but if similar in size to Eugene it's far different in many other ways. Points out Mayor Neil Giuliano: "We have no growth issues because we're bordered on all sides by other communities already."

The city's Sun Devil Stadium is right on the ASU campus. From inside or out, it's among the most beautiful I've ever seen, a bowl dropped in the saddle of two cactus-spiked buttes.

The Wells Fargo Arena, where today's pep rally will be held, is in the shadow of the football stadium; dozens of restaurants, cafes, bars and shopping opportunities abound a short walk away, just south of the Salt "River," whose visual appeal falls off a tad when you see its concrete banks.

But, then, that's the fascination of seeing someplace new: just as the Schaefers' trip to the top of that butte gave them a different perspective on Tempe-Phoenix, so does a trip in general give you context for where, and how, you live.

Sometimes you find yourself thinking: Hey, I could get used to this. And sometimes you find yourself thinking: 49 bucks for brunch?

EXTRA POINTS

If you're wondering whether the Gerlingers in paragraph two are related to the person for whom UO's Gerlinger Hall was named, the answer's yes. Carl Gerlinger's aunt was Irene Gerlinger, from whom the building got its name. Helen Gerlinger's grandmother's uncle was Cal Young who, along with J.A. Church, served as UO's first football coaches, in 1894. Teri Schaefer's father, Ron Lyman, played for the Ducks from 1950-52. And, to stretch the fandom to four generations, her son Peter will enter the UO in the fall.

I was a little surprised to see the Fiesta Bowl Parade's "best display of theme" award go to Tostitos, which did put together a nice entry but was also the event's sponsor.

At Sunday morning's news conference inside Sun Devil Stadium, the scoreboard clock was used to make sure the Ducks and Buffaloes weren't taxed beyond a 30-minute limit. Unlike UO's 56-55 heart-stopper against Arizona State in the same stadium in 2000, however, no overtime was needed.

Fiesta Bowl by the numbers:

42 (yards of Tostitos logos on the playing field).

7 (number of consecutive years the winner of the Fiesta Bowl has stayed at the Scottsdale Plaza Hotel, where Colorado is staying this year).

1,600 (pieces of illegal Fiesta Bowl merchandise confiscated last year).

400,000 (estimated crowd at Saturday's Fiesta Bowl Parade).

$300 (cost per person for tonight's Colorado black-tie dinner and ball at the Phoenician, which, along with UO's $49 brunches, explains why business experts expect $100 million to be generated by bowl fans who've come to the area).

At 6-foot-6 and 330 pounds, offensive tackle Mike Delagrange of Grants Pass isn't the largest player on the Ducks' roster for no reason. Sources close to his stomach said he wowed his teammates the other night at a local hamburger spot, eating one "4x4" (a burger with four patties of meat) and one "5x5." Not nauseated yet? Mull over the thought of his dessert in the desert: a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

Duck players say they're having fun, even if some think their far-north location is keeping them a bit out of the dance-club loop. "I'm just soaking up the experience," safety Rasuli Webster of Brea, Calif., says. "We're having fun. The luau was good. Some guys went to an FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) breakfast. And I'm liking the sun.'

Kicker Jared Siegel says the best bus entertainment has come from fullback Josh Line of Springfield, whose singing of R&B tunes is scoring big points with teammates.

Of Ducks and Bucks (a Eugene family's daily spending odyssey during the Fiesta Bowl week): Dave and Bonnie Carmichael, son Joe and daughter Jamie. 24-hour period ending 4 p.m. Sunday: Meals (two), $153; rental car, $28; hotel, $99; golf (four people, 18 holes with cart), $168; shopping, $20. Total: $468. Two-day total: $1,920.

- Bob Welch

CAPTION(S):

Salem Duck fans (from left) Teri Schaefer, Linda Farrington, Rick Schaefer and Dan Farrington enjoy the view from "A" Butte that overlooks Tempe and ASU Sun Devil Stadium. Teri Schaefer's father, Ron Lyman, played for Oregon from 1950-52 and her family sports four generations of Duck fans. THOMAS BOYD / The Register-Guard