Eating and Working in the Valley of the Sun

Multimedia Package By Jacqueline Ludka, Jamie Nusbaum, and Amelia Wright

Intense heat. Water bottles. Sunglasses. Paint?

With the extreme heat plaguing Phoenix in the past week, it is important to stay cool. This is especially true for outside laborers, working despite the heat to paint, clean, and construct the city. These heat experts had advice for the high-temperature novice.

“If your lips are dry you’re already dehydrated,” said Richard Alexander, commercial painter for ColorCor Painting Inc. 

He also warned locals to drink lots of water and get shade wherever they can. His saving grace is his safari hat, which he often douses in water before putting it on his head as a way to cool down.

“Tourists should have fun in the Valley of the Sun,” Alexander’s colleague and lunch buddy, Jonathan Dalton said. Dalton drinks at least one PowerAde and two gallons of water a day to stay hydrated while he works outside.

Other outside laborers tend to shy away from food in order to cope with the heat.

“I tend not to usually eat lunch unless a piece of fruit or something. I get my appetite back in the winter,” said David Rich, a construction worker drinking a soda in the shade during his lunch hour.

Some appetites just change.

“Once it raises above triple digits, its starts going down”, said Tyler Ellis, owner of Coney Island Grill, of his business where outside laborers often stop for lunch. “More deli, beverages, and smoothie sales pick up.”

As Rich said, when you’re working outside in the Valley of the Sun, “I guess you get used to it.”

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“Get cool while you can,” is Jonathan Dalton’s motto when dealing with the heat as he enjoys his fruitcup lunch and his scratch off ticket before returning to his painting job.

Preferring to eat outside even in high temperatures, Sheila Ralston, Phoenix native, suffers from no loss of appetite as she converses with Kim Mullins, a Downtown Phoenix Ambassador.