Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire OK, Tell Me About Phoenix

Where would you be working? That will determine, to a large extent, what areas you would want to consider for a home and what kind of commute you'd be in for.

During the housing market frenzy, new homes sprung up in many of the outlying areas. Those areas are now leading the way down in home prices. And, I'd avoid them unless your job allows you to work from home. They will look like bargains....homes that sold for $250k in 2006 can now be had for $60-$75K. But, the commute from these locations is brutal if you must work in Phoenix.

Wow, that's news. I was kicking myself for letting my concealed permit expire as I'll be spending a lot of time back in my home state this year. Did not realize they went to permit-less concealed carry this year.

And Phoenix is nothing like LA. I grew up in AZ, both in the valley and around Flagstaff. I live in LA now. No comparison. Sure, it's not the central AZ of the 70's, but it's also not the LA of the 90's either.

It does crack me up a bit to hear people complain of traffic in the valley. I've been back so many times, and relatively speaking, yes, it's worse, but still doesn't touch LA traffic for its' mind numbing slow pace and steering wheel eating inconsiderate drivers.

If you have an inside job, you'll be fine with the heat. Takes some getting used to, but manageable, if you're just not completely "alergic" to the heat like I am in my older age. Hate it, and it makes me miserable to do anything outside in the heat.

Almost moved back a couple years ago, then took a substantial promotion (sold out I guess). Will be in the hell of LA for a few more years I guess. But it's still close enough for me to get back on long weekends and vacations.

Love AZ, but if I have started looking at NM. Same type of geography, weather (desert, mountains), same type of things to do, but with half the population.

If my company bought there now, I'd be back in a heartbeat, desert heat or not.

Look at Cave Creek, just North of Scottsdale. I'm right on the border of the two, and I commuted to Sky Harbor for years. 40 minutes each way, on average. I love it up here, because it's easy to escape up to the high country. Pretty affordable, too.

Looks like work location would be northeast side of town.

That probably puts you looking for place around Scottsdale or north east Mesa, perhaps even Tempe. Lots of nice places around there and its really easy to get to the high country too.

This.

Cave Creek and Carefree are nice places to live. Much of northeast Mesa is nice, too. There are nice pockets all over the Phx metro area, from Gilbert to Glendale. North Scottsdale, Troon, etc. are nice but way too upper crust for my tastes.

Phoenix isn't all that bad. The summers can be tough, but you don't have to shovel sunshine to get out of your driveway in the mornings. Plenty of great hiking in and around the city, and the topopgraphy is so diverse that you can be in oak-studded grasslands, alpine meadows, desert bighorn territory, or 10,000-foot mountains blanketed in blue spruce & aspens within a 3-hour drive, depending on which direction you head out from downtown Phx.

If in the far northeast, then Rio Verde and Fountains Hills might work too. You'd be neighbors with Sheriff Joe in Fountain Hills.

Thanks, you guys are making me feel better about the prospects. A moderate commute doesn't bother me. Hell, in my last job in SoCal, I spent almost three hours per day on the road. I could easily handle 40-45 minutes to live in the right area.

Up here near cave creek we're 1000' higher than downtown Phoenix, and it's about 7 degrees cooler, if you care about that.

i might add that just to the north of cave creek is the seven springs, camp creek road. Which through bends etc goes about 70 or 80 miles north to a place called childs. One of the interesting things is that you have that mass of humanity, but within miles you get into country that hasn't changed much in 200 years. I might also note that about 50 miles north of my house in north phoenix is crown king, in the southern bradshaws. I have seen 20 feet of snow there once upon a time. About the same 50 miles north is also bloody basin, named after an unfortunate housecleaning episode with some local indians a number of years ago. I will guarantee you can get into trouble real quick there if being stupid, from the heat in the summer, and the mud in the winter.
If you want to be a indian do like my cousin did. He went a few years ago up north of cave creek to bloody basin crossing the bridge on foot at sheeps crossing(bridge built for sheep) and did a week in the matztal wilderness area on foot. It was the danged indian coming out of him.
Cave creek has mountain lion coming into down once in a while. Friend of mine lives there and has had them in his back yard, tempted to let loose with the a.k.
As to the permitless carry, that does NOT come effective for a few more days, as to the concealed part.
You could always carry pretty much, just not concealed. The law change when effective gets rid of that issue.
Be careful where you park your hat, it is a difficult decision to think real estate is coming back real quick.
A soon to be family member a few years ago bought a nice 1900 sq ft 3bedroom, 2bath house with pool out off I10 and 122ave, say south west part of town. Would have to think purchase price was over 200k at the time. It short saled recently for about 67k. Course 40% of the subdivision is that way.
I think rufus in the weeds, lives out in waddell, which is on the west side. Nice place, named after a family member.
Again, in a few hours i was up on bill williams mt outside of williams saturday, in tall grass looking at the rain clouds moving in checking for elk, lion, deer, what ever was moving. I think that area is about 7000 ft and at night it is certainly cooler.
My daughter commented this weekend with the cloudbursts you were cold at night in prescott, but hotter than hades coming down to phoenix the next morning.
Last fall coming out of a blizzard up north, when i got down close to phx i turned the a/c on.
Mr headworker there in s.e. arizona has got part of it right. I can think of a lot better places than phx to live in in arizona, but the metro phx/tucson/flagstaff corridor is where you make the money to go play in the rest of the state which is thinly populated.
i might add for people who have read louis lamours books, a lot of them were written near payson, or aforsaid crown king in a place called horse thief basin. He got the original spirit of arizona pretty close.

You are correct, sir. To add a little more local color, there's a little general store across from the Waddell PO that has a corral so you can park your horse when you go inside. This is only a couple miles straight shot from the I10.

Been to the Bar in Crown King. My Son-In-Law tried to sell me some land there a few years back.
I like the area between Prescot and Yarnell.

have a deer tag this fall for the area to the north of yarnell and prescott going up to camp wood.
as to the bar in crown king, don't think it has to have changed much but had to relate the story.
In the early 70's in december a friend and i split a case of beer and headed up the old road to crown king.
that road originally was the narrow cage railroad, with all the switchbacks. Went into the bar, had the pot belly stove going, and went out back to use the outhouse. Had a hollowed out log for the urinal on a slant running out the side. The bar impressed me because they had cases of coors stacked on one side clear up to the ceiling. The guy said they were expecting bad weather, which made sense at the time.
people's valley just before yarnell has always been kind of a nice little place. Use to patrol down that way in another life.
A lot of the forest around crown king is pretty rough these days due to drought and the bark beetle.

Ya got that right, I was visiting a friend there and went out at 10pm... it was like walking into a sauna... unbelievably hot.

I figure they are on Pacific time for a reason.... it puts sunrise way early, everyone goes out and does their outdor stuff before breakfast.

Otherwise felt very much like California... expensive, trendy, and with an unfriendly Hispanic population.

Birdwatcher

I have friends in Payson and have kicked around there a bit, chased quail south of there, fished a few of rim lakes, etc., so I know some of that country. Looking forward to hopefully seeing a lot more. If I accept the job/make the move, I'll be asking you guys for some tag application advice, for sure.

Look at it this way. If I make the move, you wouldn't be gaining another bleepin' Californian. You'd be gaining another shooter/hunter/angler/conservative vote.

That definitely works for me.

Best of luck on your job offer.

Did a job there a few years ago in the summer. I'd worked there before off and on for years and knew what to expect. I had a young ambitious welder with me and he darn near killed me busting azz in the heat the first day.
Got back to the hotel that evening and I explained the rules to him.
Next day we started at 5AM, worked till 9AM then quit and went back to the hotel.
Took a cool shower and headed for the pool, swam for a while and took a nap.
We went back to work at 4PM and worked till 8PM
That was my normal workday in Arizona.
I never liked keeping my tools in a bucket of water.

We'll see how it plays out. Have a couple of other irons in the fire right now I'm waiting to hear on and am not meeting with the company until Aug. 3. Much depends on what they're willing to pay... Looking at the real estate prices, though, I could take a considerable cut and still come out ahead financially. Looks like you can buy a LOT of house for the money right now. Just did a quick scan of houses in Mesa, just to get an idea, and was shocked. Some of the houses going for $200K there would go for nearly $1 mil here.

Let me retract not not the same as L.a but close, its no small town... I will venture to say probably more drug related killings than most other cities too.

I can drive to LAX in 40 minutes too if i time it right but with SNA 8 miles away I can be there in 15 minutes so never go through LAX . I will gladly pay more to stay out of LA county.

As for CCW I don't believe you can carry concealed in PHX.

FWIW it is only a few notches north of L.A. in my book if I'm given the choice on where to live. Lots of hunting opportunities close by though.

ML

Re. concealed carry in Az., I'd have to check, but I'd bet I'm already good to go since I have CCWs from Utah and Florida. I thought the new law makes permits unnecessary in Az, unless you want one just for reciprocity sake in other states?