I recently spent almost a week in Arizona visiting family. It was my first time visiting Arizona, and suddenly, I understand John McCain a whole lot better…
We stayed in a rental house, for which we have the terrible housing market in Arizona to thank. The house had three bedrooms, two bathrooms (an extra half-bath would have really come in handy), pool, hot tub, putting green, outside grill…if this sounds fun, it’s available for rent for a low price. Because I’m the curious type, I looked up exactly how underwater the previous owners had to be. According to the property tax records, the house sold for about $180,000 in 1999, then for $352,000 in 2006. It is currently valued at $180,000 for property taxes, showing that in Arizona (and Florida and Nevada), what went up really did come down.
The Titan Missile Museum was a lot of fun. Taliesin West was even more fun, which was surprising to me, as I didn’t think I’d get into Frank Lloyd Wright as much as I eventually did. In-N-Out Burger was everything I hoped it would be, and if I could live in one, I would. We also checked out the javelinas and indoor aviary at the Desert Museum (I’d never even heard of javelinas before the trip), and we spent about six hours at the Pima Air and Space Museum, which was nowhere near long enough to see the 300 planes on more than 80 acres. It was too hot and out of season to get much out of Tubac.
Culturally, Arizona sure is a special place. I don’t know if I am just not old enough to appreciate it or what, but the monotony of the place did grow old. I know it probably makes sense to make every house mud-colored, but the lack of variation gets to you. Then, you have the golf courses and other obvious affronts to the desert, which I can’t help but view as the hubris of humanity ripe for a fall. Two golf courses side by side is a bit much, especially when you know how far the water had to travel for those greens.
We also stayed just a couple miles from the Safeway where six people were killed and over a dozen others were injured, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. In fact, we completely unknowingly visited that exact Safeway when the grocery selection at Walmart became too much to bear. I found it odd that there was nary a memorial or other indication that just a few months ago, this had been a scene of a massacre (although it looks like there used to be one there).
If you want to visit Arizona, go in the winter instead of July so you can see the touristy stuff and the weather is nicer (it wasn’t any hotter, heat-index wise, in Arizona than in Minnesota, though). However, I don’t think I’ll be moving anytime soon: I imagine my retirement to be more along the lines of the Maine coast in a Nor’easter than in the sun-baked Southwest.
Of course, I took a bunch of pictures and I’ll post them soon.