Arizona living

Verde, Verde Valley, Prescott to Sedona (if you have the $$)
Ride, ride, ride any direction.

See ,Buller I told ya, Camp Verde Valley Best of all possible worlds, not too cold, not too hot & ride,ride, ride

If i had to innovate a Dakar style race in the southwest Camp Verde would be my base camp and central command box.

Arizona city? Really? Have you ever been there? If pinal county were to vomit....

I know some law enforcement down there and they hate it. I've done some work down there and I don't care for it. Mind you I never spent a bunch of time there, but really wouldn't want to.

Man do I ever wish I had checked with you guys before I moved to Kingman. What a shit hole this has turned out to be. With the prison in Golden Valley I'm convinced that a good part of the population of Kingman and the surrounding area are here because the have family living at the expense of the state. Ever get an email with pictures of pajama people and freaks at Walmart....those pictures are taken on Stockton Hill Rd here in Kingman.

The whole of the US 93 and US 95 corridors offers no decent place to live. The river is Kalifornicated so badly by retired aerospace jet boaters that you would think you're in southern california. Had I done a proper due dilligence I would be in Prescott, or at least in the general area of Prescott. Draw a circle say 25 miles around Prescott and start looking.

One thing you want to look for in Arizona is public utilities....here in Kingman we don't have many sidewalks or street lights and have 28,000 people dumping their sewage in the ground and, we get our water from local wells. I don't even want to know about the chemistry of our water....I drink water I buy at safeway. Of course we pay taxes that are so low that you will feel like you are stealing from the government.....which by the way is not a bad feeling.

I could go on and on, but until the real estate market turns around we are stuck in this shit hole.

The up side, is Arizona has good riding weather pretty much year round. A little hot in the summer but if you stay away from the river and head for the high country it's not bad at all.....and stay out of the high country in the winter.

Mike

Shut up about Prescott! Enough people here already.

Not as much changing as you'd think. Oustide of the Valley or Tucson, hardly anything changed since I lived there.

Like I said before, we lived in Scottsdale in the 80's. My youngest son was born there and when he selected college, it was AZ State in Tempe. So we got to know the area all over again.

That whole 5k' foot middle band of the state is probably going to be attractive to you. Winters are mild. You get a little snow, and the next day it's blue and 70. Personally I liked the desert, though. I never minded the heat if it was under 107. Soft resort air most of the time. Wonderful evenings.

Course, I live in Boston now, so the desert is looking pretty heavenly in December.

Tucson is actually a wonderful place if it weren't for the fact that it is run by a whole lot of 1960's hippies who either don't have a clue about running a big city or want it to stay just like it was in 1966 when they got here. The other faction is the Hispanic crowd who really believe Arizona should still be a part of Mexico...and they are serious. Viva Baja Arizona!

I lived in Tucson in the mid 70's, used to go shooting with my neighbor who was a DEA agent in town. He told me that in 20 years of law enforcement he had only been in situations three times where shots were fired, they had all three been since arriving in Tucson with the DEA.....back then it was a fairly active drug area....might still be. Anyway, my point is the desert that close to the border can be iffy.

Had another friend that was a game warden with the state. I rode with him for a day to get a feel for what game wardens do for a living. He made it clear that at night, if you see activity in the desert....go ahead and drive back to town....it's nothing you want to get involved with....you won't want to risk your life for a few bales of weed. That's what the DEA guys and their automatic weapons are for......

Of course that was almost 40 years ago, probably nothing but old retired folks there now enjoying the sun and working on the tan's......

You might notice that I retired to the north end of the state, just a little too far north....

Mike

sorry, but the verde valley proper is closed to californians, however, they are still accepted in sedona as long as they stay there

Kingman,what a wonderful place

Dolan Springs is full of tweakers and old folks on ss. If you like remoteness and not being able to leave your property for fear of being burglarized then it is the place for you. There are some nice places there but few and far between. Meadview is better but not by much. KIngman is getting better as well. As for the comment about Hutch KS I have been there and the Kingman area is worse.

There are much better places in AZ. I moved from that area to the Verde Valley and am glad I did.

Prescott is nice you might like the Pinetop area as well.

-John

Since most of your posts have a political overtone to them I will say that you don't have to live in a tiny town or off the grid to be amongst those with a similar mindset to yours as you might in CA.

If I were retiring to AZ I'd strongly consider the Prescott area. Personally I plan on leaving the state in a year or two and moving further north.

Ya I got ya on the tweaker thing. Desolate and inexpensive areas would be magnets for sure. I might have to rethink remote for a few reasons. After living in a state with megamillion population I wanted to "get away" but most towns seem small enough to work with.

I am still sticking to my story that I am an Oregonian that got sucked into Ca. for the weather.

So, will be snowbirding and looking around AZ from Oregon-----. what would be the top ten areas to avoid, listed in order to avoid, as in getting your SUV broken into while trucken off or riding my DR650 off in the hills or desert all day?

For instance, we have a rip off area in Grants Pass Oregon, or ------ bad area in Colo. is Colorado Springs.

I have been visiting AZ for the last couple of winters. I would agree with the riding comments and Desert versus the high country. Don't necessarily agree with the comments about people. I would be more worried about parking in town than out in the desert. Lots of people leave their gas cans, ramps and stuff in their truck. Doesn't look like they are worried. I would not park too close to the main highway. It is easy to go out a ways on a dirt road and park.

Most of Arizona is safe to leave your gear and ride. Most of us have the same idea that we need our gear to survive and taking that is like giving a death sentence.

I avoid remote Verde Valley areas since there is a lot of meth in that area that make people do stupid things. Just look over Craigslist for all the items they will sell for supporting their habits.

The area is the Rez. Even if you have the appropriate paperwork some of them don't care. They will happily smash your windows and take your tires. I avoid that place unless I am traveling with a Native. It may be a small percentage of hooligans but returning to a destroyed car in a remote place is a bummer.

I second the recommendation for Verde Valley, up into the Mogollon Rim country. Year-round riding, lots of forest roads, meth problem has declined far in recent years (according to local law enforcement), property values slowly rising out of the bottoms. Little industry besides tourism and healthcare. Towns: Clarkdale, Cottonwood, Jerome, Camp Verde (lots of rural land), Pine, Strawberry, Payson.
Close enough to Phoenix for a day trip, easy drive to Vegas for a weekend. Beware of shoddily built houses from the real estate boom time. Tap water drinkable. Possible arsenic danger from well water. Right up next to Sedona Red Rock Country.

Great stuff. If any of you FFs are doing the DV noob rally in March let me know as I will have an RV for camping and beer to exchange for local stories.