12 Things I Have Learned.

[jwhouk]

Twelve Things I Have Learned This Year

This is kind of an expansion on a list that I posted on the Book of Face. I figured I'd throw it out here first, with the main list, then an expansion on the individual items.

1. I do NOT miss winter in north central Wisconsin. I know, I've pounded this one into the sand and back, but really - I don't miss the snow, I don't miss the cold, I don't miss the drastic temperature changes that generally chill you or make you miserable. The dry, relatively warm climate here in AZ suits me, especially this time of year when I was routinely dealing with SAD because of the lack of sunlight. Granted, the Merrill area never got several feet of snow in one fell swoop like places along the Great Lakes generally do, but the fact is that snow is only pretty the first time it falls - and then only while you're watching it through a window while inside in front of a warm fireplace.

2. Moving across the country is expensive. As in "ohmiGAWD" expensive. Truth be told, a good chunk of my $ went to moving us from WI to AZ. We still had plenty to keep us solvent (and me without employment for a month and a half), but picking up and moving like that was taxing. And all the stuff we had to get rid of back in Wisconsin still boggles my mind - though there were things I had no problem dumping (like, say, snow shovels).

3. Driving a fully loaded mini-van across the country in mid-winter can prove challenging. I actually took two trips across the US in two separate vehicles en route to full-time living in the Valley of the Sun. The first time we essentially left my car there in Arizona while we went back to Wisconsin (kicking and screaming) to get everything packed to leave a couple of weeks later. The second time, my wife's minivan was filled to the brim for the entire journey (pun intended since that's what we drove down), along with our wonderful kitten who took to the trip rather well. Of course, since we chose the Southern route (aka Route 66), it wasn't as hard to drive the second time. Once we got to STL, the weather was pretty okay for most of the rest of the trip. We did see snow on the mountains in Navajo County as we entered AZ, but there wasn't any on our drive into the Valley.

 

[jwhouk]

Part 2

4. Spring Training is a fantastic way to get closer to your favorite baseball team. There is a level of intimacy at spring camps that is drastically different from going to an MLB game during the regular season. It's something to watch big name players plying their trade while you stand mere feet away. I remember watching Josh Hader warming up during the early part of Spring Training this year, and thought, wow, this guy's got some heat. Of course, I followed that up with if he could only keep it in the strike zone... An add-on to this: Spring Training baseball is best watched with family, where you can comment about the game, about players, about life, about the sun and the stadium, all at your leisure.

5. Driving school buses for a living can be tedious – but immensely rewarding. I'd forgotten over 25 years of dealing with juvenile delinquents that "real" kids are much more fun to be around. That being said, driving a big yellow school bus on a (generally) set route between points can get annoying at times - especially when you live in a huge city like Mesa where the street grid means you have to apply a weird calculus to try to get from point A to point B. Sure, the frustrations of speed bumps, cramped bus loading zones, and massively inattentive drivers around school zones make it annoying. But to see a kid smile at you when they get on the bus in the morning, or step off the bus to greet their parents as you take them home? Yeah.

6. You never know how much you miss your family until you finally get to see them again on a regular basis. This was the worst thing in the world for me when I was living in Merrill. I was hours away from family, to the point where I almost felt like there was this wall preventing me from going to southern Wisconsin. On arriving in AZ, we made a point of spending Sundays with my dad, and making sure we did things with Sarah's parents as well. A case in point as to how this was different: I lost a great aunt four years ago while we were in northern Wisconsin - and she was in Racine. I didn't have the chance to run down there to say goodbye. Sarah, on the other hand, talked on the phone with her grandma last weekend. Though we were both sick and couldn't make it down to Tucson (which is much closer to PHX than Merrill was to practically anything), she at least had a sense of closure with her.

 

[jwhouk]

Part 3

7. Summer in Arizona is HOT. I know, I complained about this from about May to late September, but damn if it isn't true. Unlike most of the rest of the US, the hottest point of the day is actually from about 3:00 to 4:30 PM - and it really starts to get hot in the days between the summer solstice and the week of July 4th. That's the time when the average low temperature is in the 90's (F). And the stuff about the "dry heat" is kinda bull, because hot is hot, dry or not. I've walked through a few establishments that had cool water misters outside and to tell the truth, they didn't make things feel any better. The openness of things like malls and schools and other places where large groups gather is necessarily a good thing, as it would be horrid to stand around with that many people together in the ungodly heat. Even standing in line while waiting for gates to open at a baseball game got bad. The whole "drink water" and "keep in the shade" suggestions help, but oh my. It could be worse, of course - you could have mosquitoes.

8. In general, the cost of living in Arizona is reasonable… until summertime. Really, it's not all that bad to live down here. Prices are reasonable, and there's a pretty good selection of places where you can buy pretty much anything - and the competition keeps prices down. However, there is one thing that pretty much torpedoes any reasonable level of cost here: electric bills. Unless you have a home that is super efficient and is built in shade, you're going to be facing triple-digit electricity bills to keep your home's interior livable. And that's considering an average indoor temp of around 80F during the day, mind you.

9. Monsoon season is nothing to trifle with. The period of time from theoretically mid-June to late September is when storms roll in to the Valley and provide us with the majority of our rainfall for the year. Think about that for a second: most of the precipitation we get over the course of a year is essentially crammed into a window of three months (really two months; it usually only rains in July and August). When a storm wanders in, it's usually the remnants of a tropical storm that comes off the Gulf of California, which means it not only has rain but a whole bunch of dust and dirt alongside it.

 

[jwhouk]

Part 4

10. Elections in Arizona are complicated, almost to the point of confusing. I've pointed this out elsewhere, but the most recent general election here had so many races, along with the numerous state, local, and school board ballot initiatives - and the absolutely ridiculous judicial retainer voting. Then there's the election signs on every street corner (I think I've seen a few are still up on a few stray locations around the city), and the absolute demonizing of opponents by politicians (oh, hai, Senator McSally). It's no wonder that Mesa voters barely chose to approve a bond issuance for Mesa Public Schools - but voted against a bond override allowing the district to spend over its current levels to replace outdated equipment and adjust salaries for the increase in the minimum wage. Sigh.

11. Snowbirds make driving in Arizona… interesting. OK, imagine this: six months out of the year, you're driving around your city or town and it's no problem - license plates are generally from your state, with maybe a few rogue ones from neighboring states. Generally, people understand what the laws of the road are, and try to keep up with traffic and whatnot. And then, suddenly, you get a glut of people in cars with license plates not even from your own country. And they drive slower, don't know the rules of the road, and basically drive like they don't really care that they're blocking traffic. This is Arizona Winter Driving in a nutshell. I have officially seen (as of right now) license plates from 45 of the 50 states since mid-October, and plates from the six major border provinces of Canada. Pretty much everyone who lives here full-time has a story about a run-in with a snowbird driver - and usually with the amount of colorful language that accompanies it. (Oh, and I should also note that because of the shorter amount of sunlight during the day, it makes for interesting times trying to navigate down the road.)

12. Winter in Arizona is equivalent to early fall pretty much everywhere else in the US. It took me a while to realize this, as you get this sense that "Arizona is ALWAYS hot" from popular culture. Truth is, except up in the mountainous area of Northern Arizona (aka "where no one really lives), temperatures generally don't get much colder than what you'd expect in Autumn in, say, the Midwest. It does get down into the 30's overnight in January, but it usually gets back up into the 60's and 70's by mid-day. And as a corollary to point 7, it doesn't cool down immediately once the sun goes down. This is, of course, because we essentially live in a desert here in the Valley. Still - there are trees down here that shed their leaves during the winter.

 

[Dei]

One of my favorite parts of living in Colorado is that we still randomly get snow, but for the most part it stays in the mountains and our winters tend to hang out in the 40s and 50s. And since we get a lot of sun, those 40s and 50s tend to not require more than a long sleeved shirt unless it's night time (unless you're my daughter, who has to be forced into a coat at any temperature unless we're skiing.)

I also enjoy that fact that even though it gets into the 100s in the summer, it always drops to the 50s or so once the sun goes down (the other advantage of those clear skies) so sleeping isn't death.