Moving to Arizona
 

Just looking for some advice. I was offered an opportunity to relocate to the Phoenix area, and I'm slightly overwhelmed. I currently live on the east coast in a rural area. My question is about the area. I can live within an hour or so of the Phoenix area. What towns or area would be good for Housing, schools for my family. We enjoy being outdoors, camping, hunting, fishing, boating. We live in the mountains now, so I'm going to miss the seasons and tree's. So.....where's the best place to be? And where should we stay away from. Thanks in advance for any help.

Holy crap, I'm in the same boat... I'm moving from SC to Yuma, AZ in a week... Can't help you out any with the questions, just funny we're in the same boat. No paddles!

Small world huh. Well, at least I know there's another southerner in the area. If I can help you in any way, let me know.

Same here. I'm packing the truck today and tomorrow...

How are you going to move? I used a U-pack deal... they drop off a semi trailer, you pack it, and they charge you for the footage. I can use a full 26' trailer for a max of 54xx bucks. I looked into rail shipping a vehicle, too...

Ok well. Lets see. Mesa is a no because the city is pretty much Bankrupt and has cut budgets in both police and fire coverage. Although the schools are nice. Tempe is good but very crowded with the university being there and all. Great schools and great city...Just a tad congested. Chandler is good with good schools. But if I had to do it all over again. Id go with Gilbert. Great city, well run with good schools. A bit more pricey than other areas but worth it.
As far as hunting, camping, fishing and mountains. You're about an hour and half away from the Mogollon Rim which will have everything you will miss about back home. Mountains, trees, rivers, nice little lakes, camping, fishing etc. If your just in it for the boating, about an hour away is Apache, Canyon and Saguaro lakes. A bit more to the north is Lake Pleasant which is a nice lake for boating as well.
If you're looking at a certain house. Post the cross roads and I can tell you if the area is good or not. Im only familiar with the East Valley. Not so educated on the west valley such as Peoria, Glendale, Avondale etc etc...

And I feel sort of bad for madhat. Yuma...is well, uhhh Yuma (lets just leave it at that) :)

Thanks :) [laugh]

You're welcome. How long do you have to be there?

~Three years....

Ouch... Well sometime come on over to the more civilized area of Arizona and maybe we can schedule a meet and greet somewhere. There are drag strips, mud bogs, sand drags all sorts of redneck sports going on. [roll]

All joking aside I would like to thank you for serving our country and making it a great country to live in! [guitar]

Yessir!

I hope to be able to start something down there. There is another member down in Yuma, we'll try to get something going...

Well, its not going so well (getting something started). Id put flyers on trucks but, Im at work too much. Hopefully we can at least stir something up on base. May have to allow other makes and models to join.

Yuma aint bad, its all perception. Plenty of fishing, hunting and off road adventures. I like it, but it will be 9 years total in Yuma by the time I leave.

The west side is booming. Everything you need is here and its all relatively new.
Only a short drive to any trees or seasons you would miss.

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East side is too congested. Where are you working at though, that plays a big part of how much commute you want to deal with.

X2, and can't stress enough to people to live close to work... those who don't are miserable with the traffic, especially those who live in the east valley ..

Emissions Question.....
 

Just wanted to thank all of you for the help and input. We found a place in Goodyear (towards the mountains). Really nice. I've been working out here for about 6 weeks, and it seems to be OK. I know the heat is coming though. I did have a question about the missing cat. on my truck. Am I going to be OK. for emissions testing. I've got an MBRP 5" w/ muffler cat. delete. With the Hypertech I can run the truck stock for testing. Let me know what you think. I still have my old exhaust that I was going to trash before moving.