On our last excursion to Arizona, we took some time out from house-building to do a little sightseeing. I composed this panoramic image of the Hassayampa River which runs through Wickenburg. Although it is dry in this image, it flows in the springtime and sometimes during the August/September monsoons. The presence of water ensures that the riparian vegetation stays green and lush even in the desert climate. Click on the image to see the full panorama.
When I tell people we’ve moved to Wickenburg, they often ask “why there?” I give them the usual answers that the climate is nice (we like the heat), property values are good for buyers, historic small town atmosphere, friendly neighbors, plenty of services for a small town and most importantly, one of the lowest crime rates in Arizona and the U.S. I studied crime rates within the state at four locations which seemed reasonable places to relocate; Tucson, Marana, Phoenix Metro and Wickenburg.
Tucson and Marana are located in Pima County in the southern part of the “Valley of the Sun” (basically along I-10 south of I-8). Phoenix and Wickenburg are in Maricopa County. Even though the vertical scales differ slightly on the graphs above, you can see that personal and property crime rates in Wickenburg are relatively small. The graphs came from a real estate appraisal website’s demographics section for each of the four areas. Click on the image to enlarge.
After nearly twenty years, my old Hewlett Packard 4L Laserjet printer finally bought the farm. The venerable old printer started misfeeding the paper last night causing jams and errors. I tried troubleshooting it for a while but it stubbornly refused to cooperate. So I disconnected it from the network and loaded it up to go to the HAZMAT recycle center on Friday. I have a bunch of other HAZMAT items boxed up so the timing is right.
Even before showing signs of failure, it started getting hard to find toner cartridges for the old printer. Fortunately, one on-line source came through a couple of years ago when I ordered a couple of toner cartridges. I used one up and the last one we had started to exhibit signs of going out of toner.
The last time I installed the printer on the new laptop, I had a difficult time locating an on-line source for a proper printer driver. I guess the signs were all there that the time has come for a new printer.
We will be in the market for a new printer when the new house in Arizona is complete. In California, we’re going to scout out and buy a cheapie printer to use until we finally get the house on the market.
I was rummaging through some of the archived photos today and ran across this one from Christmas Eve (Verna’s Birthday) in 2008. We were in a rented motorhome just coming into Wickenburg. Verna snapped this photo of the now familiar Wickenburg Way. Make a left at the signal ahead, go a quarter of a mile and turn left into Casandro Wash. We’re about 700 feet up the road.
We spent the night in an RV park just at the south end of town on US 60. It was our first night in Wickenburg. We left town the next morning headed for Flagstaff, our next stop on the winter vacation. The day after that, we were in Grand Canyon NP.
After attending the National Rifle Association convention in Phoenix in May of ’09, we went back and stayed at that same RV park five months after our first visit, still not knowing that we would be making Wickenburg our home.
We departed Wickenburg to travel back to California for a couple of weeks in order to continue the process of getting the old house cleaned up. This final view of the construction for this trip shows the progress since the last report when we arrived from California a week ago.
Image: Progress as of our 13th wedding anniversary – click on image to enlarge
I took the top half of the image from the little hill behind the house. The bottom half is the front view of the house taken from across the road on a little rise over there. You can see the floor plan a little better in the front view.
The first window on the left is the master suite; bedroom in front and bath/walk-in closet in the back. The doorway leads into the great room whose window is to the right of that. The kitchen/dining area are behind the great room with the patio sliding door in back. There is a little window over the kitchen sink where we can look out to our back yard.
The next window to the right is the front bedroom (#2). We’re planning to have that one be the computer room/office with a TV and a convertible couch. Behind that is the second bathroom, the laundry area and the back bedroom (#3). The last small window on the right lets light into the 21’x24′ two-car garage.
In addition to ‘checking up’ on the progress, we made considerable progress of our own. Verna selected the kitchen and laundry appliances and we made some decisions on decoration and lighting. We also have a running list of things we will ask the contractor to do.
Now that the house is taking shape, we’re even more anxious to get moved in. We will return in October to attend to a few more issues that are pending until the next stage of the project.
Verna took this photo of a cactus sprouting from a palm tree on the corner of Yavapai and Tegner next to St. Anthony’s in Wickenburg, AZ. It’s interesting and weird at the same time. The tree trimmers apparently let the cactus do its thing, I guess. Click on the image to enlarge.
