Hey guys I'd some like some opinions

[Ranger1930]

Looking at a College out of Arizona.. Tempe to be exact.. its a small town just out of Phoenix.. And Well I'd like some thoughts on the matter..


What is it like in Arizona.. please, is it as beautiful as it looks in my dreams

with the deep crimson colors and dusty sands..
wild cactus.. and lazy drifts of wind..

I see myself standing on a stone porch. looking back out over a small mountain scape. looking at all the variances in the stone.

whats the heat like? is it terrible.. I don't think it would be.. being so dry...

so please.. whoever can help out.. Let me know how it is please..

the scenery and type of life of a place greatly affects me.. Its why i couldnt live in D.C at all.. that damn city is just a fuck'n meat market... thats all it is. with the never ending apartment towers and cars and roads.... RARGH UGH! nasty filthy fuck'n city..

[LixyChick]

I've never been to Arizona...but I'm looking forward to some answers to your queries too!

*takes out the Jiffy Pop and gets the fixins ready for a vanilla milkshake*

[fzzy]

I haven't spent a lot of time in that area of Arizona, from the little I remember about Phoenix, it's a big city .... and with all of it's attached "cities" it spreads out over a ver large space .... This I do know .... dry heat isn't as hard to take as wet heat, BUT 110 degrees is hot no matter what!!! You don't do a lot out of doors there from the end of April til the end of September - not until after dark anyway. It is the desert, so nights can get surprisingly cold (other than the hottest of months). Arizona has a very wide range of types of scenery from the various locations in the state, northern arizona is "high desert" and can be very cold for most of the year. Went to Grand Canyon at the end of May one year and nearly froze! Then there is the painted desert. .... Just so you know, desert can be very beautiful, but also in some places it can seem like you are never going to get any change in scenery from the miles and miles of flat land covered only by the occassional cacti. If you are used to a lot of greenery, desert isn't usually like that unless it is cultivated to be like that. Phoenix area however has a lot of palm trees and such.

[Pita]

I lived in Phoenix a couple of times in my life. The last time was in 1988. The city sits in a valley of sorts with dirty, cactus filled mountains. Don't think Rockies or anything pleasant. It is a very smoggy city. The last I heard even rivaling LA.

The heat in the summer is hot like an oven. Its dry and horrible. When the rains come the streets flood terribly because the city didn't put in adequate drainage. I once got stranded on a neighborhood road and had to call for help because my car was flooding. :rolleyes:

It is big and like all big cities have its run down ugly sections and its very nice manicured ones. Tempe is a nicer looking city then Phoenix and the other smaller towns to the West.

I moved out of there and have no desire to ever go back. But thats just me. :)

[GingerV]

Hey there...New Mexican here. Never spent a lot of time in Arizona, so I'm going to leave Tempe to the experts. I do want to weigh in on desert life, though.

It's beautiful (although a different kind of beautiful than my home, from what I remember), but it's a beauty not everyone gets. That's cool, we don't mind the folks who don't get it driving on by. I'm still wierded out by dirt that's just various shades of brown, and when I moved into upstate NY I honestly felt like I was driving through a salad. Nice, but I didn't see how folks don't go over all claustrophobic.

The desert is probably what you imagine....in places. But our cities are a lot like everyone else's cities...McDonalds just look ugly wherever you plant them. If you want the "desert out my back door" experience, you may have to live out of town...and I don't know if that's an option for you. While the beauty's there, I'm worried you'll be disappointed by the city they've landed on top of it.

And then there's the heat. AZ has that whole flat/anvil/baking kinda heat going on....it gets even nastier there than my home (and I can remember my dad's nagahide couch melting in direct sunlight). Mountains are definately good for something. But heat is a wierd beast. Dry heat beats the hell out of humid heat (lived in Houston, left skid marks getting out), but they girls above me are right...hot is still damned hot. Have you ever been in a dry 100 degree summer? Cause as our troops can tell you, everyone reacts differently to heat. Some can't cope. Doesn't mean they're bad people, just damned unlucky in my book. They get miserable and occasionally sick. God help me, I'm in love with one....and it drives me crazy sometimes that we just aren't ever going to be able to live where I grew up. If you start peeling off clothes and sweating at 85, you may not like it much above that. In the age of air conditioners, it's more of a nuissance than a health risk...but if you're AC dependent, you're gonna hate the summers. Me? I bug folks. I don't notice heat. It's in the high 90s before I start thinking it's too warm for comfort. Whether it's just my genes, or the fact I grew up in it, I don't know. But it's probably one of the reasons I'm a desert lover.

And speaking of dry.....that's occasionally an issue all on it's own. There are some bodies that like the dry air, others that hate it. Again, no way to know. It might clear up your skin or irritate the hell out of your sinuses.

With all that though, I have to go back to loving the desert....and having a fondness for the other people who share that liking. I'd recommend going and visiting the school (IN SUMMER) if that's at all possible. As someone who does a lot of work with students one way and another, that's actually a recommendation I'd make to anyone. More importantly than learning if you like AZ, it'll help you decide if you like the school. One way or the other, you're not settling there for a lifetime necessarily. And your choice of school shouldn't be dictated by the weather or the nightlife, unless all other things really are equal.

[Ranger1930]

I live in PA now.. and its extremely humid.. through the summer it can easily get 90+ with 100+ humid.. which just makes it opressive.....

and i've also lived in NC where its quite dry.. and we had days where it was 115.... in the shade... so the heat.. doesn't scare me... but all this talk of filthy cities does quite easily...

[FallenAngel5]

One of my good friends goes to school in Arizona, and she loves it. I believe she's in Tucson, not Tempe, but close enough, I think. She says that the heat is much better than here (Western New York). We know about the oppressive humidity, and she says that even though it gets so hot, it is much better than the humid-hot. As for the beauty of Arizona, that I cannot testify to, as I've only been to New Mexico, but that was beautiful, and I can't imagine Arizona being much different.