Where is it - or more accurately if you had to list your top 5 areas in the southwest to live (and they have to be major cities) based on wheelin what would they be?
The list should not include California (for job reasons).
I'm talking about Arizona, New Mexico, etc.
I have to make such a list for my new job.
thnks

Originally posted by Lucy's Driver
Where is it - or more accurately if you had to list your top 5 areas in the southwest to live (and they have to be major cities) based on wheelin what would they be?
The list should not include California (for job reasons).
I'm talking about Arizona, New Mexico, etc.
I have to make such a list for my new job.
thnks

For shear quantity of trails close to a metro area you have to live in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, Chandler, Tempe, Peoria, etc, etc.

hey-

here ya go- most aren't MAJOR cities but what the :D, they are made for wheelin'

1. Prescott, AZ. - in central AZ, reasonably close to Phx, Flagstaff, etc. but has four seasons- population 80,000

2. the greater Phoenix Metro area- lots of wheelin', boating, baseball, football etc. population HUGE

3. Montrose, Colorado- I'd move there in a heartbeat, but there isn't much for an aerospace M.E. to do-

4. Cedar City, Utah- beautiful country, great wheelin'

5. Silver City, New Mexico- same as above

later

Phoenix, hands down. I cant even count how many 5 rated trails there are within 1 hr of my house. 3 hrs from skiing, 5 hrs from Mexico beaches( bikini wheelin). Its an easy drive to : Johnson Valley, Moab, Las Crusis, Glamis, ect., ect., ect.

Farmington/Aztec NM is sweet. AZ is too damn hot for my fat ass....

Phoenix gets my vote; yes, it's hot in the summer, but the rest of the year has amazing weather, there are tons of trail to run close by, there is a huge job market, the prices of real estate are reasonable, the city has nightlife, sports teams, etc... Also very centrally located to the rest of the Southwest, relatively close to other wheeling areas like Farmington, Moab.
I used to live in Glendale on the west valley and everything was close!

Cedar City is beautiful, but I couldn't live in a small place like that, you have to drive to St. George for half your stuff, and if you're not LDS, it can get uncomfortable.

If you are looking for Major Cities... Albuquerque, NM. Close enough to Farmington, not too far from Moab, and you are IN the mountains when your are in the city.

My bud lives there and we regularly go out in the hills when I go see him.

lance too funny my reply was goona be anywhere but NM to damn depressing. seems like a bunch of drunk indians living in squawler.


UT is bitchen but i just can't get into the mormon thing, it seem to over bearing

so i guess for me it would be somewhere near phoenix. maybe even parker or lake havasu

I'll add Tucson into this mix... the Phx trails arent that much further away. Florence Junction is 45 minutes from Tucson via back road. The trails north of phoenix are a whopping hour and a half away (with me driving ;) ) The driving distance to Moab, the Hammers etc is only an hour longer and I simply like the city much better.. less pollution, less crime... fewer people.. oh and no real traffic.

Naw...Go Santa Fe. Awesome culture, very little pretence, skiing 23 miles above town, small, 2.5 hours from Farmington, 5 hours from Cruses, 5 hours from Penrose, tones of 5+ local stuff...

No...Wait...It's hot, dusty, full of drunk indians living in squaller...Don't move here.

--D

Originally posted by RockRover


No...Wait...It's hot, dusty, full of drunk indians living in squaller...Don't move here.

--D

HAHAHA I hadnt thoguht of that! Dont move to AZ either! ;)

Originally posted by RockRover

No...Wait...It's hot, dusty, full of drunk indians living in squaller...Don't move here.

--D

Oh yeah. What he said. ;)

I was wondering if someone would mention Tucson...This is the real Southwest with real food, real mountains, and real people, unlike "white bread, yuppy infested, crackerbox house, polluted, etc. Phoenix" I must say though from what the guy originally asked, as for CLOSE wheeln and a GOOD job market, Phoenix would be the place. All of the trails are just outside of town, and there are tons of "play areas" too. Although don't be fooled by the comment made earlier about "it's only hot in the summer" I used to live there. The summer starts in late April and sometimes it will stay in the triple digits until Nov! And that statement you hear poeple there say "it's a dry heat" ...Bullshit! after late June/July the humidity in Phoenix is rediculous. Not like other parts of the SW. I would have mention Las cruces just because There are jobs and there's definately Hard core wheel'n. Farmington is just plain sick as for as the trails, but there's not much else there to justify making it your base camp. INMO, I would plant in ABQ, NM for many reasons other than just the 4 wheeln...:rasta:

There are jobs in Las Cruces? Shit! There are no jobs in Tucson.. if there were.. I'd be out of Kalifornia already and back home.

sorry to offend you guys in NM i have only been their 6 times and every time i am shocked it is even in the same county i live in. kinda like a third world state. :flipoff2:

Originally posted by RockRover
Naw...Go Santa Fe.
--D

If I ever considered leaving Phoenix, Santa Fe would be high on my list. ( I have friends who live in Glorietta) I love to go there just to eat! New Mexican food rocks. Never wheeled there though.

No offense, camo. You're absolutely right, most of the state is very much like a third-world country, complete with banana-republic politics, flagrant nepotism, and ceturies of inbreeding. Not to mention all the drunk indians living in squalor. Albuquerque is more of a typical large city, Santa Fe is a sort of a cultural center of the state, and Los Alamos is such a contrast it seems to have landed from space - highest per capita concentration of PhD's in the nation, very high average income, etc. Not far away (Chimayo, Truchas, etc.) has one of the highest concentrations of heroin-related deaths in the US; and Espanola, geographically in between, is the low-rider capital of the world :rolleyes:. The diversity is really astounding. Believe it or not, the state of NM has more computational power than any other nation (mostly at Los Alamos and Sandia nat'l labs) and schools throughout the state are full of slightly-used computers donated by the labs. I went to grad. school in Socorro, and if you want to see extreme contrast in a small area that's a good place to look. About 1100 students at a hardcore science/engineering school, in a town of 8000 that dates to the 1640's; where most local women over 30 are "grandma".

We've got it all.

I agree on Albuquerque . Good weather all year round for the most part. Wheeling on all sides of town, 2.5 hours to farmington, around 6 to moab, 3-4 to Cruces and a nice easy drive to Colorado for their high mountain trails. Also lots of opportunity for jobs here if you look around.

Lloyd - I couldnt stand NM tech or to live in Socorro for that matter when I went to visit it so I decided to go to UNM :D

Ah yes. UNM is a good school, but I do explosives, and they don't. Kinda limits the selection (U of Delaware or BYU for thermal decomposition, Wash. State U. or Georgia Tech for shock physics, NM Tech for explosives chemistry). I didn't mind life in Socorro, but then I grew up in Ridgecrest, CA. :p Some good trails around Socorro, too; east into the paleozoic stress field, north to the Ladrones, west into the Magdalenas, etc.

Thanks guys. Wish list goes in at the end of the week, I get orders four weeks from now. I'll be trying for home (NYC) since my fiancee's job will stay there (and she will, she makes a ton of money and goes home at five thirty every day), but if I can't get NYC/Newark/New Haven or such, the south-west is going to be next in line. So do the Swampers turn into MTRs nest tire change if I end up in the desert?

Originally posted by Lucy's Driver
So do the Swampers turn into MTRs nest tire change if I end up in the desert?

No ;) keep em till they're worn out... and I still like swampers

Hey dont forget about beautiful Flagstaff AZ........5 hours from Moab....2 hours to Pheonix trails.......3 to Florence junction.....4 to farmington.......4 to Johnson valley...right in teh center of the entire mecca......and 6900 feet altitude.....nice summers....80's good winters......snows...ski resort here.......lots oa nd lots of pine trees......and the cinders national recreational area...kinda like big sand dunes without the grit!

Just to let everyone know, we're full in Phoenix. Go to Crapson, oops I mean Tucson, they've got room.
Phoenix rocks for pretty much everything IMO. I can take the heat, so I'm stayin' in the kitchen for now. 75 and sunny again today.