Your Thoughts on Arizona..... (Phoenix, Gilbert: rental, houses, scorpions)

[beckyu]

My family and I are moving from ND to AZ in 2 weeks....

We have been down there many times and love it there......

So I just wanted to get some thoughts of what other people
really like or dislike about Arizona......or any advice you can give us...

Thanks!!!

[Badland wonder]

Where in Az are you and your family moving to?

[beckyu]

Originally Posted by Badland wonder

Where in Az are you and your family moving to?

We are moving to Queen Creek.....
we will have a rental home there for about a year...
then eventually we would like to move to Power Ranch
in Gilbert......

[Badland wonder]

Think you will enjoy living in Az. The area you are moving to does get hot, but I know Nd does too! Arizona does not have the humidity and is a dry heat. Thunderstorms in the monsoon season are refreshing and exciting. Will be a lot more to do and a lot more people to see than ND. People are generally friendly and Az still has a bit of the old west in it. Don't know as much about the Queen Creek area as some other areas of the state, but I do know Az is fun to explore and ok to live in. I am originally form SD.

[beckyu]

Originally Posted by Badland wonder

Think you will enjoy living in Az. The area you are moving to does get hot, but I know Nd does too! Arizona does not have the humidity and is a dry heat. Thunderstorms in the monsoon season are refreshing and exciting. Will be a lot more to do and a lot more people to see than ND. People are generally friendly and Az still has a bit of the old west in it. Don't know as much about the Queen Creek area as some other areas of the state, but I do know Az is fun to explore and ok to live in. I am originally form SD.

Great! Thanks for the info! How long have you lived in AZ? Acutally,
it rarely gets hot in ND anymore....the month of June here has been like Fall, very cold, windy and rainy....I think we have only had 3 days tops of nice weather so far.... and only about 2 days that have reached 80...that's one of the reason we want out of here....I know it get really hot down there, but there are more cold months in ND then really hot months in AZ.... One other reason of us moving down there is the cost of living is much lower in AZ then ND.....you can get so much house for the $$$ more so in AZ....the houses in ND are very expensive...and the taxes are high too....

[Badland wonder]

Lived in Az for 30 years. Am now doing a stint in southwest Utah due to a family situation, but can get to Az in 3 hours! Mostly lived in the northern part of the state, which is a little pricier than near the Phoenix metro area. Some one from those areas will hopefully join this thread and give you good info about the Queen Creek area.

[LordBalfor]

Well, first off we love the weather of course. Currently living in Seattle,we get more than our fill of cool gray skies and are very much looking forward to the blue sunny skies of SE Arizona.

Aside from that, the best thing we like are the monsoons (yeah, I know, that's weather too - but we love it enough give it, it's OWN category).

We love the sunsets, and the gorgeous scenery.

Ken

PS - Spent a year and half in ND (TWO Winters!!!!!) living in Finley and Hatton back when I was in high school. Folks put the plains states down all the time, but to be honest about it, they have their own kind of grand beauty and we enjoyed our time there (though not the winter months).

[Gretchen B]

Welcome to AZ, Becky! I moved to AZ from Nebraska about 7 years ago, having lived in the tri-state area of Colo/Nebr/Kans most of my life. I currently live in the Prescott area.

These are the things I love about Arizona:
THE WEATHER, especially up here in Prescott. No more icy winters with scraping ice/snow off the car and freezing for the first 1/2 hour til the car warmed up on those really cold days. Also, it's only windy here in the spring. Especially compared with the Plains, you'll hardly notice any wind.
THE SCENERY. I love that you can see deserts . . . and mountains . . . and red rocks . . . and lakes . . . all in one day! From Nebraska, we'd be driving 6 hrs to get anywhere that we could enjoy camping for a weekend.
FEW BUGS. You'll hear lots about scorpions and tarantulas, but really you'll rarely run across those. Here in AZ you can sit outside and not be attacked by swarms of mosquitos and flies and gnats. You really enjoy eating outdoors here.

The things I dislike about AZ:
HOT, HOT, HOT summers. We lived a year down in the Phoenix area before moving to Prescott. I thought I wouldn't miss the winters (and I didn't, except I found I wanted to see a little snow once in a while - which is what we get up in Prescott). What I did find out, though, was that I missed summer. I love to be outside in the summertime, and I found that when we lived in the Valley it was too hot in the summer to enjoy being outside - even at night, when the temps are sometimes still 100 at 10 p.m. I love it up here in Prescott, though, where we rarely get into the 100's (most years we don't), and where the temp cools down into the 60's at night. I love sitting out on the patio every evening in the summer here.
TOO CROWDED. Although there are some isolated places, the towns and cities on the main highways have growing populations and lots of traffic. Of course, that can be a nice change from the new ghost towns in "farm country" in rural ND, SD, NE. Once in a while, though, I'd like to take a drive without having to fight traffic. There are a few quiet drives, but not too many of them.

All in all, I LOVE Arizona and although I miss some dear friends back in Nebraska, I could never move back, mostly because of the economy and the weather.

[Riverock]

Best advice on any move is to spend time in that location. Have you visited Arizona in the summer? Can you handle triple digit heat for four months? Northerners quite often make that mistake and find it's too much. Ready for Big city living? Phx is the 5th largest City in the US, Phoenix and surrounding metro areas have a population over 4 million, 6 times the entire state of ND. Along with big city living comes big city problems.

[sheena]

Originally Posted by beckyu

My family and I are moving from ND to AZ in 2 weeks....

We have been down there many times and love it there......

So I just wanted to get some thoughts of what other people
really like or dislike about Arizona......or any advice you can give us...

Thanks!!!

I like the sunshine and the fact that we don't get these wild Spring season tornadoes. I also like the fact that we have mild Winters and don't get wild snow and ice storms.