John, the house looks great, but it's the BLUE sky, that I really envy right now.

MA is not known for too many blue sky days this time of year.

 

It may be blue, but I have a feeling that the pic was taken last summer or fall. IIRC, Payson is at elevation ~5,000 ft and might even have some of that white stuff on the ground right now

 

It is in Payson, and it is a modular home (yes I am trailer trash). The pic was taken last fall. We were up there two weekends ago, and the weather was beautiful. We're going up again this weekend before I go to Japan (another 10 hour plane flight).

The expected weather in Payson this weekend is to be about 60 on Saturday but then cool off quite a bit on Sunday with snow down to about 7000'. The house is at about 5100' so I don't expect to get any snow.

By the way, the sky is that blue most of the time (except for storms blowing in). I read somewhere that Payson has some of the cleanest air in the country.

The house is a 1987 model Palm Harbor double wide. It is set permanently in place. It is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, with a large kitchen and dining room all told about 2200 sq. ft with the sunroom. There is also a 3 stall barn, another 3 car garage (neener neener Jerry) and sits on 2.5 acres.

There is a wood stove in the sunroom and the previous owners left us a very nice hot tub, which we have been using on those cold winter nights



Payson is a town of about 15,000 and is a bustling place in the summer as people from the valley head up to the much cooler rim country. In the winter, it is a pretty sleepy place, but there is some traffic as people head up to one of the ski areas here in AZ.

We plan to move up for the summer (with our horses). Eventually, when I retire, we will probably move up to Payson full time, but keep a small patio home here in Scottsdale also for those times when we need a nice restaurant or a cultural infusion.

At this point, I travel so much for business that after I retire - if I never have to get on a plane again - it will be just fine with me. My travel bug has been sprayed with Raid, stepped on, burned, and thrown in the trash.

 

Nope - I grew up in a small town in central TX. I moved to Austin to go to school and began my career working for an environmental consulting company in Austin. The company used to be called Radian Corporation, but has since become URS.

After my wife graduated from college, we moved to the San Francisco bay area, and lived there for over 20 years. I worked for another environmental consulting company based in Mt View, CA. That company was called Acurex, and has since been sold/disbanded and became Arcadis in Raleigh/Durham, NC and is still around in a much reduced form in the bay area and is known as Tiax.

I left them in 1993 to move to the company I work for now. I convinced them that they should not move me to NY (company headquarters), but leave me set up in an office in CA, which they did until we decided to move.

In 2001, we had enough of the bay area (traffic, cost of living, etc.) and decided to move. I told my wife that we were either moving back to Austin, or to Phoenix and she got to pick. She picked Phoenix, and we moved here in August of 2001 (in retrospect - a horrible time of year to move to Phoenix).

This is where we got bitten by the horse bug. The rest is just a future of depleted checking accounts, shoeing, hay, shots, and riding through some of the most beautiful desert and mountains I have ever seen.

 

^ The desert is beautiful out there. I'm sorry I'm not going out this month as I sometimes do. Missing those wonderful orange blossoms. But Savannah should be great, too. Went with my bro up to Payson for breakfast one time. Cool little rustic place on the left going into town (I think). Nice up there. And I'm sure better than Prescott, which I assume is much larger now, having been voted one of the best places in the country to live.

 

All I've seen of the west is essentially a drive from Vegas to the Grand Canyon and back, and around Red Rock. Oh, I had a stint in Amarillo, TX but all I really remember of that is that when it rained the ground was too hard to absorb it. Not good. Friends who've been to AZ say they liked it. I would like to see the hill areas. In the end, I think I would have to be around green trees, lots of green trees.

 

[QUOTE=dlq04,Mar 13 2008, 09:35 AM]All I've seen of the west is essentially a drive from Vegas to the Grand Canyon and back, and around Red Rock.

 

The desert is an acquired taste. As I mentioned in a post previously, I grew up in central Texas - not deserty at all. When I was in college, I was offered a summer job at a small natural gas refinery outside of Moab, Utah. I took the job and loved the area.

I ended up living in an apartment above a department store, and Edward Abbey lived across the hall from me. After leaving Utah at the end of the summer to go back to school, I promised myself that I would live in the desert southwest again sometime in my life.

Phoenix is like any other large city in the southwest - relatively new, not much in the way of history to speak of, and culture of the traditional sort (symphony, ballet, etc) is decidedly hard to come by. On the other hand, if you are into cowboy culture (if you think that is an oxymoron, you should come to the Cowboy Artists of America exhibit at the Phoenix Museum of Art in October/November and prepare to be enlightened), or southwestern native American culture, this area is a treasure trove of possibilities.

After having lived in the SF bay Area for 20 years I do miss the SF Symphony and the Joffrey ballet wintering in SF for 6 weeks every spring, but I do not miss the traffic, or the cost of living, or the unwavering pressure to be hugely successful by the time you are 30.

There is plenty of green here in AZ, you just have to get to the high country to experience it. We have pine and juniper on our land, though not very large. However, within 20 miles of our land, and 2500' higher in elevation, there are plenty of pine and alpine lakes (and, thankfully, temperatures that are more suitable to outdoor activities in the summer than those in Phoenix).

The company I work for has tried to get me to move to NY (either Long Island or near Syracuse) several times over the last few years. At this point, fortunately I am in good enough financial shape that if they said either NY or goodbye, I could say good bye.

Payson is somewhat different than Prescott. We looked for land around Prescott, but the prices were too high, and IH17 up to Prescott is a zoo most of the year. Payson is at about the same elevation as Prescott, but is not as commercial/touristy. In the summer, the main businesses in Payson are tourism - basically serving the multitudes that are going to the high country every weekend, and hunting, horses, and of course real estate because of all the vintagers like Megan and I wanting to retire there.

I'm not really trying to hijack this thread, but basically what happened to us is that we got into horses in our 50's and it became all consuming. They truly are addicting. Buying a horse property, and havng the horses on our land became our retirement plan.

One of these days, I'll quit travelling like a man with his head on fire, and get to spend much more time in Payson than I do now.

 

I've spent some time around Amarillo. I have worked at one of the refineries in Borger which is not far from Amarillo. That part of Texas would really be classified as high plains. Very different than the desert landscape here in Phoenix.

About 6 years ago, I was driving to Vegas late one night. I was driving the highway between Kingman, AZ and Vegas (the term "lonely highway" doesn't begin to describe this road). It was one of those crisp clear November nights. Once you leave Kingman, there is hardly a light in sight until you get to Hoover dam. The stars were incredible and it happened to be one of the times when there was a meteor shower. I stopped several times on that road just to watch the meteor shower. It was amazing.

 

[QUOTE=Lainey8484,Mar 13 2008, 05:51 AM] The desert landscape of Phoenix didn't do much for us at all, but the clear night skies with loads of stars while driving in Flagstaff on the way back to Sedona was impressive. Oh, we got to enjoy the view even more because we spent the extra $ for a convertible .