My "month" in Arizona

My take on Arizona

where I went this month

As you can see, there are huge areas I didn't get to.  But in my defense, I'll note that (1) AZ is the 6th largest state, so there's a lot of ground to cover, and (2) there are actually very few roads into some of these areas I didn't get to.  In many parts, I'd've been traveling on unpaved roads, and I don't do that any more than I can help.  But I'm still sorry I had to miss so much of the state.

I wrote the title word "month" in quotation marks because my time here was split between 2 months.  I came to AZ December 1st, 2021, intending that that would be my month here.  But my medical problem intervened and I left from Flagstaff on the 11th.  I got back to Holbrook on February 6th, and spent the rest of that month here.  February's a short month, but with the 5 extra days, I think AZ got its fair share of time.

Arizona's land
Arizona and New Mexico are very different states by culture, but they're very similar states by geography.  In Arizona, as I found in New Mexico, the northern part of the state has parts that are almost verdant, heavily forested with a lot of interesting land forms.  And in the southern parts of both states there's mostly desert, with lots of cactus and arid conditions.  Actually, now that I think about it, most of eastern AZ is desert too, not just in the south but all the way north past the Painted Desert and on up to Monument Valley in the far northeast.  And western AZ too from Yuma north past Kingman and all the way north, including part of the Mojave Desert (I think).

But I was trying to figure out why, given the similarities between the 2 states, AZ was the one to get most of the snowbirds.  And I think the answer is in the relative temperatures.  As an example, Yuma is at least 10° warmer than Las Cruces.  Forecasts for this next week show temps in the 70s and 80s in Yuma, but in the 50s to the 70s in Las Cruces, with similar differences in the nighttime temps.  And I think those differences arise from the very different elevations: Yuma is at 203' while Las Cruces sits at 3,908'.

They've both got high mountains, but NM's lowest point is at 2,845' while AZ's lowest point is at 72'.  So for people searching for warm dry climates, AZ would be a good choice.  Driving through those states, the differences aren't obvious - to me anyway.  But when you stop for a while and take a look around, the differences are vast.

Arizona loves its cactus, and the majority of homeowners have accepted xeriscaping, so I saw cactus everywhere.  I was interested to note that I saw far more saguaro cactus when I was driving between Tucson and Globe than I did back near Tucson in the Saguaro National Park.  And with AZ bordering on Mexico for about 370 miles, much of the vegetation (i.e. cactus varieties) is shared between the two areas.

In the north, AZ shares its entire 270-mile northern border with Utah, and instead of cactus what they share are land forms.  Monument Valley, for instance, and Vermilion Cliffs are both in AZ but both are, to me, spillovers from the landforms in Utah.

But what AZ mostly is, is dry.  Only about .3% of the state is covered in water (and I'm guessing if there were any substantial bodies of water, they'd evaporate in about a day, as dry as the air is here).

Arizona's people
Most of the people I talked to were pleasant and fairly helpful.  Most liked where they were living.  But to be honest, I was a little afraid to talk much with many local people, which may have been a real injustice to the state.

But first, AZ's history has a lot of violence in it (the Tombstone/Boot Hill mentality, for instance).  Then, the state was conceived in racism (refused to join NM in being a united state because there were too many (gasp) Hispanics in NM).  The racism was also seen during the Civil War in the acceptance of the Confederacy in the southern areas.  And to add to all that, strong far-right-wing leanings persist overtly in big chunks of the state.

It's not like these attitudes are unique to AZ (I'm from Texas, after all).  But the combination of those factors made me nervous about even wearing a mask into grocery stores.  I always did, and I was never the only one, but rightly or wrongly I worried.

But as I noted in my post about Phoenix, I think this state is suffering from a sense of rootlessness, of the ground not being solid under their feet.  As far as I know, it's the only state that doesn't have a capitol building.  There is literally no center of state government.  Sure, all the usual offices are there, and the usual government officials still do their jobs.  But I simply don't see how a state can feel pulled together if its capitol building is now nothing more than a museum.  What does this do to their sense of identity?

Driving in Arizona

There are some specialty plates in AZ,
but almost everyone uses this license plate.
It shows a very Arizonan kind of scenery.

I really didn't like driving in New Mexico and so hoped things would be better when I crossed the state line.  They weren't.  Well, they weren't as far as the roads go.  Arizona roads are lousy.  And I'm sure it's not a coincidence that AZ is ranked #46 among the states for the size of its gasoline tax (NM is #47).  They don't collect the money, so they don't have it to spend on roads.  It's noticeable.

The main difference between the two states is that AZ's drivers were mostly safe, courteous, and willing to share the road - even with an RV.  They didn't get up to those dangerous tricks I saw in NM where people jumped into the middle of traffic whether there was room for them or not.  Instead, in AZ they mostly followed traffic rules, didn't tailgate, rarely ran red lights - they acted like sensible folks.  In light of that, I can't explain the 2 traffic accidents 5 minutes apart I saw in Tucson - but even then nobody yelled at anybody and everybody acted responsibly in the aftermath.

What I didn't see that I wanted to see
I included lots of things in my daily posts that looked worthwhile to see on a return trip, but here are a few I didn't mention.  

This is an internet photo, of course.  But isn't it gorgeous?

This photo is in the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument.  The problem with visiting this place is that it's seriously remote.  I think it's accessible from Utah, although it lies in Arizona.  The only camping here is wilderness camping, and seeing sights like that photo requires backcountry hiking, something I'm unlikely to be doing, I'm sorry to say.  But I'd still like to see it.

Phoenix is home to the Heard Museum, which is the best place in the US to see US Native art, and the best place in the world to see artifacts from the Southwest Indians - at least I think I've got that right.  At any rate, it's a good place to go for an education in Native culture.

The Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson are home to the oldest known tree, a Douglas fir, that's been alive since at least 1320 AD.  That too sounds to me like it'd require some hiking, but I'd still like to pay homage to anything that can survive that long.

There are plenty of other places to visit here that I didn't get to, but when I got back into the state in February, I went through my list to pick out the places I definitely didn't want to miss before the month was out.  And I managed to get to all of them, so that turned out okay.

My conclusion
I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for the Grand Canyon, and for the red rocks near Sedona.  And I liked the places I spent actual time in - Flagstaff, of course, and Benson and Tucson and Seligman - though I probably liked them exactly because I spent time there.  I just didn't care much for anywhere else in the state, though maybe I'd change my mind if I spent more time in other places as well. 

I'd honestly had hopes for AZ, because I've heard for years that it's a good climate for people with asthma.  Maybe so, but for my own particular case of asthma it sure didn't do anything good for me.  I was having at least as many respiratory problems here as in any other state I've been in, and it actually seemed worse here for some reason.

As I've said before, I'm just not a fan of super dry climates, if for no other reason but the static electricity was a major nuisance.  I've lived previously in climates something like that in Flagstaff, which may be one reason I was more comfortable there than in the rest of the state.

But what it comes down to is - whether it's the climate or the bizarre politics or the lousy road system - I just didn't care much for this state.  It's not at all the result I expected, but it's where I ended up.  Clearly thousands of other people have a different opinion, but that's mine.