I've lived in Chino Valley for 22 years. When I moved there I was the lone home owner in my area with nothing but sage brush and junipers around me, now it is mainly developed but it is unique because so much of Chino has been kept rural...homes are mainly on acre parcels. I can remember driving the 23 miles to work in Prescott each morning and not seeing another car on the road...now it is gridlock, but that's juat part of the enormous growth. It was inevitable. There are some housing tracts going in now, which I hate to see, but even so the lots are large...not the postage-stamp sized lots of Prescott Valley. You can live in Chino Valley and not be able to look into your neighbor's windows.
It's true that there isn't a lot to do there if a person needs to be entertained, but it's GREAT for horse back riding and other outdoor sports. There is a nice Community Center park and public pool for summer time and always some sort of event going on there. It is a small, rural, western town and most of what goes on there tends to lean towards horses, hiking, BBQ's etc. If one is looking for nightlife, movie theaters, bowling allies and video parlors, then Chino is not for them. But it's only a brief drive to Prescott or Prescott Valley if you are thirsting for entertainment.
It is only "cold" during a couple of winter months and generally not cold during the days, with this year having been an exception as it was everywhere. We had a cold winter...rain/snow is always welcomed, though...we need every drop/flake and folks should never complain about moisture in any form. Chino does have four season, though, unlike the valley of Phoenix, Tucson, etc where oit goes from warm to hot to furnace to hot to warm and back again.
The Safeway is clean, large and somewhat over-priced, but Safeway Stores always are. This is because they are always the first grocery chain to go into any area and they glean their income from people who have no other choices. Eventually some other chain store will come into that area and help level out the problem...meanwhile, most of us do our major shopping when we are in Prescott. I avoid Safeway on Friday afternoons and evenings because there is a large population of "immigrants" (legal or otherwise)in the area. Most work out at the quarries outside of town and you don't see them all that much on a day-to-day basis, no more so than any other area of Arizona, but on the weekends they do their shopping and you will be overrun with shopping carts full of beans, tortillas and "cerveza". I will not expound on my political feelings regarding this...the problem is everywhere in this state.
I feel Chino Valley is a nice area for young families, much more relaxed and scenic and uncluttered than PV, which is wall-to-wall tract homes and strip malls. If you like quiet, have animals or livestock, and can entertain yourself without a nightclub or a bowling alley, Chino will make a very nice place to live.
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01-06-2008, 04:10 PM
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Chino is unique
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