Destroyer442 said:
What part?. Tell me more about it bro. I'm real serious about this move.
Here's my current weather:
View attachment 526547
The summers are hot as hell, & last a loooong time. The hundred-teens are not uncommon; it hit 113° the day we moved here, 07/03/01. (It was a record for that day.) You know it's hot when it "cools off" to under 100°. Humidity is pretty much non-existant; all the "it's a dry heat" jokes are true. 100° here feels like 85° at my folks' place on the Texas gulf coast.
I'm about 15 miles or so west of Phoenix; I like being in a small town near a big city, so this suits me well. It'll soon be like any other suburb, though, progress is gaining rapidly. I'm on the west side; the east side is nicer for scenery & more expensive.
It's a dustbowl, especially in the summer. Dust storms that turn everything brown & wipe out all visibility are not uncommon. They're usually the front end of a summer rain storm, & if the rain comes with it, it's OK; otherwise, it's just nasty.
The heat is real hard on cars, specifically rubber parts & batteries. Two years is an OK lifespan for a car battery here.
It was a real trip for me to go outside at 10:00 at night when I got here & feel the sidewalk still very hot on my feet. It can get pretty burdensome after a few months.
The good part is you can escape it for a day or a weekend with a drive to Sedona or Flagstaff, maybe a 2-3 hour easy drive. Sedona is the most beautiful place you will ever see. It's very nice to go get into green trees & 70's for a day or two. (Sedona will stay pretty hot, Flagstaff gets cooler. Big elevation change.) You can also head to San Diego (my favorite) Palm Springs (just as hot) or LA (dunno why). San Diego is maybe a six hour drive.
The other good part is the whole rest of the year. We had I think two days this winter where low temps hit the freezing mark. After spending a lot of time in the Pacific Northwest, if I'm going to have one season to excess, it's going to be summer.
Coming from CA, housing is very affordable; every other cost of living item is probably slightly less than it was in California.
www.realtor.com is a good place to check out home prices. I'd combine that with just looking at the area on
www.mapquest.com to get a basic idea of the place.
We have NASCAR, NHRA, & I think Indy car events, NBA, NFL, NHL, & MLB. Spring training is especially cool, too many teams to list.
Emissions is easy for OBD II (96 & newer) cars. New cars are exempt for the first four years, after that, they pressurize the evap system & check for codes. If your mods don't trip the light, you're basically good to go. Earlier cars have to be run on the dyno, also. Real early cars back to 1967 get hosed here, they have to pass emissions (including dyno) testing
every year. This is for Maricopa county (Phoenix & surrounding areas). It's actually more stringent here than CA for the classics. Other areas have no testing at all, not sure about Tucson.