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I thought ABQ was a major city, and close to Denver.
It's all relative. With a greater metro population of roughly 907,000 (or about 1.1 million if you include Santa Fe, Las Vegas and other N NM cities), Albuquerque is a lot bigger than Shreveport (metro population ~441,000). But some folks here reserve the "major city" title for real national-scale metros like Denver, Phoenix, or Salt Lake City, with populations of 2 million+, major league sports teams, etc.
And "close" is also relative, as lots of people have pointed out. The "closest" other large city to Albuquerque is probably El Paso, and that's still 4+ hours away by car.
I also went to mount purgatory once and learned I can stand a cold, snowy, sunny day better than a hot, humid, cloudy day. It was a brief experience, but I enjoyed my skiing lessons more than I liked jetskiing on the red river back home. So long as there is a place to jetski in the summer within daytrip distance, I think I would rather have snowskiing in my backyard than waterskiing. That is partly because I am a bit of a loner and I would need to have somebody to pull the boat. Of course, there is also a different kind of jetskiing you can do on your own, and as long as I can do that over the summer when I'm done teaching school, I'll be happy. So far, ABQ has everything I like either right there, or within a 3 hour drive. The isolation is a plus, in a way, since I like dark skies for stargazing.
It's time for someone to say this if it hasn't been said yet already: you should visit before making a decision to move.
I can see more stars here than I could in Philadelphia, but I think stargazing would still be a bit limited, in most parts of the city. It's not like being out in the countryside.
Shreveport:Sea level with humidity vs 5,500 ft and very low to no humidity
UV index is ridiculous, bring your sunscreen
Cultures: read language of blood to see the major differences amongst the natives/hispanos
within their own culture, another good reading is land of disenchantment so that you can get
a real insider look at what plagues the vicious cycle within our culture. Being a teacher you
can help with some of that thinking, especially if you are teaching in our public system
in some of the lower income areas.
Housing: expensive for lack of jobs.
If you are a teacher on a limited budget my suggestion is to buy the ski pass, otherwise it is
pricey to buy day passes. Jet skiing is good at Elephant Butte, but a little difficult to execute
alone, there are always people on the dock willing to help out if you plan well.
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