Blogocentric Formulations

Arizona

This past week was Spring Break for my kids and we spent the first part of it (Sunday through Wednesday) visiting family in Arizona. I realized that it's my first visit to the state (other than a brief "step across the state line" moment during a trip to Nevada and flight layovers in Phoenix, neither of which I'd consider qualifications for saying you've visited a state).

It's only the 13th state I've actually visited (following California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, New York, Florida, and Hawaii), which means I really need to pick up the pace if I'm going to reach my goal of visiting all 50 states in my lifetime. Maybe I need to get a cross-country trip on the books or something...

Overall, I'd say that Arizona was a nice place to visit, but not somewhere I'd want to live. The downtown area of Phoenix was nice and had a great children's museum, and I'm super jealous that their traffic is so light, but I thought the suburbs were a little too quiet for my tastes and you had to drive an awful long way to get to anything other than other homes and housing developments.

Oh and there's the fact that it was 90°F while we visited in mid-April. I don't think I could survive somewhere that has repeated and extended periods of 110°F+ temperatures for half the year...

I'd definitely go back for a visit, as long as it's not between May and October.