Need to Find More Big Trees & Water in NM - Help! (Albuquerque: transplants, rentals)

[gambit11]

I've only posted a few times, a newbie and really need some help. You look on craigslist and try to think of the right questions here, but when you move 1400 miles there are some things you can only discover on landing.
Needed to leave Seattle for health reasons and the old bones feel much better here. But I have never lived in the desert (Placitas) and the land just does not speak to me, it leaves me cold and feeling very displaced. I spent most of my life in New England (love it) and then moved to PNW and it took years to get okay with the climate but it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen and Seattle is a world class city. But many days I cannot even walk there and do pretty well here. I've always lived within an hour of the Atlantic or Pacific so being landlocked makes me a little crazy too.
In my expeditions here I've looked for more greenery, more water, grass, deciduous trees, shade, not so continually bright, a little cloudy and affordable and I have come up with Taos. But I am really needing input on it. I cannot take the heat in the summer, it was 95 and up from June till Sept. here. Can I expect ten degrees cooler year round up north? Will it feel more like seasons - more like New England than where I am now?

I apologize for offending anyone who is in heaven here. We're all different and "one mans ...................... etc"
I'll probably grow to love it, it takes years for me to adjust, but so far Taos feels most like what I am used to and looking for.

Open to all suggestions as long as it's not "yankee, go home!"

that won't be for another couple years!

[mrgoodwx]

Yes...Taos will definitely be cooler year round. Summer afternoons average about 7-8 degrees cooler than ABQ. Chama would even be cooler. You can check out the following link and fish around looking at different locations:

New Mexico

Since you left Seattle for health reasons...I guess you realize health care is pretty limited in places like Taos.

[joqua]

Gambit:

It would be helpful to know if you're still working or must work - or have enough to live on in retirement?

That and the need for specialized health care will make choices narrower since almost all of the forested regions of high country in NM have fewer options for someone not already self-sufficient.

That having been said, seems to me you need to look both north and south before deciding on another move. Taos is a very "special" place, not suited to everyone, as are other places like it. Los Alamos is a bit higher in elevation and has excellent infrastructure due to the high-tech nature of the place. There are also smaller "cities" in both the southwestern mountains (Gila Nat. Forest), the Manzano Mtns, and the Sacramento Mtns in south-central NM.

[Dogmama50]

Does it need to be New Mexico? Towns like Evergreen and Genesee in the Colorado Foothills may be a nice change. I'm a ex-New England girl and found that Taos was a difficult adjustment for me. I loved visiting but living there takes a very specific mindset.

[gambit11]

I will try and answer some questions here.
Work - home business, no need to go out.
Medical - I was crippled by spinal stenosis a few years ago and by the time I got to surgery my L3 nerve was crushed for a year. I have had great reduction in pain due to the weather here, but have some ambulation issues. All are improved after leaving the magnificent PNW, but I still take lots of medication for pain, etc. No narcotics, but 6 or 7 neurontin a day. Hopefully I will not have an acute sickness like before, but I do have it in other areas of my spine. My spinal column had completely calcified on the L3 and the nerve will not regenerate. That vertebrae is like new now (they took part of the bone and went in the spinal column and shaved it clean) and hopefully will last some years. So I am hoping my health care needs will be more mundane and I will be able to go to a clinic. There is one hospital, yes? Seattle has a zillion well funded hospitals and I had the best neuro in town do my surgery.
I lived three miles from Seattle proper on Mercer Island (with a bridge) so I had all the city culture and conveniences, but got to go home to a pristine, quiet island. That is on the days you can drive in Seattle, when the traffic is not gridlocked.
I did live in Denver & Boulder for six years and love Evergreen, but my partner has to fly to So.CA for one week each month for the business and the connections and $ from Denver are not so good. He would have to shuttle from Taos to the airport here. And he loves the desert, so CO is colder than he is looking for. I'm guessing if Taos is only about 8 degrees cooler in the summer that it is that much colder in winter?
I tend to get along quite well with 'freaks' and oddballs so if that is part of the Taos thing, it should be okay. Are the peeps unfriendly? I have read that here, but find them very friendly where I am now. Contrary to myth, New Englanders are very helpful and kind. Anyone here ever here the term "Seattle Freeze"? It is very cold city in many ways. I have a handful of wonderful friends there after five years but most folks keep to themselves. P.C. to the extreme.
I check the weather in three places on my google home page everyday, Seattle, Placitas, and New England. CT is always always right in the middle on humidity and close to both on temperature. It is green but not a rain forest where you spend half your life trying to keep the plants from taking back your house. And here, just the opposite. Two extremes and I wonder if someone who loves PNW can adjust too NM and end up actually loving it? I complained about Seattle every day for years and everyone said "just wait three and once you are acclimated, you'll love it" and it was true. My partners business is centered around So.Ca. and that is too expensive (ah, the ocean) and his daughter is pregnant in Tuscon so we are here for two years. Then home to CT or RI for retirement.
I'd love to hear more about Taos being a 'different' 'special', etc. place.
We looked at a house in Valdez and loved it but needed a 4WD which we don't have and of course loved Arroyo Seco and I have about ten emails out to landlords on craigslist, so hopefully will be busy next week.

thanks for all the kind replies and I hope to learn more here

[AlisonL]

I hope you find the place that suits you and calls your name.
I love NM and would never ever move back to New England, and I lived there for 54 yrs. We moved for the sunshine (I suffer from SAD) and drier climate (also have asthma) Moving here has been wonderful for my health.
As you said, everyone is different. Good Luck in your search.

[mrgoodwx]

gambit...have you considered simply moving (if a "simple" move actually exists) to a community on the east side of the Sandia Mountains? That way, you would be in a cooler, greener location that doesn't have nearly the extreme cold you can get around Taos...and you'd be close to ABQ. Parts of Sandia Park are near 7000 ft, and we have friends who live 7 miles south of Tijeras in a nice little subdivision. They are at 7500 ft.

[gambit11]

Thanks for your input.

I lived in New England for fifty-five years and after five years in Seattle, New England is sunny to me! Partly cloudy I like and CT gets a lot of that. I love farm country, fertile ground, the architecture, the reverence for old things. The Atlantic Ocean, I feel so landlocked here. I especially miss four dramatically different seasons which you don't have in PNW. New England to me is like the middle of these two extremes. I grew to love the PNW but it took a few years and when I meet transplants here they are usually ecstatic! I have SAD also - (don't EVER move to Seattle) and take 20,000 units vitamin D a day. Seattle is a very high pain area if you have any inflammatory or nerve issues, which I do. But actually I have heard New England is even worse for those things as the barometric pressure changes so frequently. In PNW you get low pressure and it stays there for eight months
And I am committed to living here for a few years as I do feel much better. This climate is great for my old bones ~
What I need to find is an area with trees (taller ones), water and not so hot. Snow and cold I can take.
Where are you from?

[AlisonL]

What about looking into the Jemez area? Lots of big trees near there and plenty of snow. And, Fenton Lake for water.

I've always dreamed of living in the wild west, guess I must have in a previous life or something.


I was born and raised in Maine, and much prefer NM. I am not housebound here in the winter months. I grew up on the coast of Maine and took it for granted. I always wanted mountains, and now I have them. I am the opposite of you, I do not like cold or snow. I can look out my windows and see the snow on the Sandias, and that is good enough for me. The thing I love about out here, is if I want to go play in the snow, its not that far away.

[gambit11]

I check craigslist everyday for Jemez, Cedar Crest, Tijeras, Sandia Park, Madrid, and Corrales for Albuquerque area and unfortunately nothing has come through in our price range ($900 - $1200). We loved Jemez but there aren't many rentals at all and most of the ones in our range have some carpeting and we can't do that. (13 y.o. dog with bladder cancer)

So I should check out Chama, Los Alamos, and............

We like Nob Hill, Spruce Park, (who doesn't) but it's too hot for me and I'm figuring anywhere south of Alb is not going to work either.

Checked Espanola (nope) and Chimayo (too stark), Tesuque (liked).

So we look same criteria in "Santa Fe/Taos" and there are lots of really nice houses. I know that's because it is so far out (airport once a month) and doesn't have any of the larger city amenities, but we felt it made up for that in the beauty of the area. Valdez, Arroyo Seco, affordable. The further out you get, the rents go down.

thanks again