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Are those mountain wildflowers from 2020? If so, you are KILLING me. I saw the bare beginnings of crocuses poking their stems out and was overjoyed. (And if not, hey, look what we get to look forward, to, eh?)
Those are from this year. We have had some amazing Pacific moisture over us the last few weeks and our thanks to @Kraffty for sharing the wealth and passing some our way! The flowers are all from the southern part of the state. Much warmer south of I40 for sure. We have gotten over an inch of rain this past week here in the North. Very good news as this will help with drought and fire prevention.
Spring is our absolute worst time for forest fires with lots of wind and higher temps this time of year. Usually very dry conditions exist most years.
Spring is our absolute worst time for forest fires with lots of wind and higher temps this time of year. Usually very dry conditions exist most years.
I see. That is great news.
Whenever I look at climate west of the Rockies (i.e., when scouting for retirement/snowbird locations!
), I always get muddled messages from NM (which, believe it or not, we have looked at seriously). The damn high altitude throws everything loopy! You have referred to the NM banana belt. Where would you say that includes (roughly)?
This is probably much more than what you wanted to hear but I will put this out there to share.
It takes the body several weeks to adjust to high altitude and we are considerably higher in EL than Denver but nobody seems to brag about it much really. Baking takes some adjustments! Los Alamos has an EL of just over 7300ft. We live in what I jokingly like to refer as the "banana belt" of White Rock (8 miles down "the hill" from Los Alamos) which was a construction camp originally when it popped up way back in late 40's. It was abandoned sometime after that and transferred to the County in the early 60's for housing development as they were running out of land to build houses on already due to many factors like topography and the fact that all the land around was either owned by the DOE, the US forrest service, the native pueblos etc. Land land everywhere but not a lot to be had to build on has always been a huge problem. Property prices have always been high due to this but the last year or two they have completely skyrocketed due to the fact that the Lab's budget has been increased by as much as 30-50% in some areas. The lab is set to hire ~1000 - 1500 people this year and there is no place to house them all. Makes being retired and not having a mortgage tempting to say the least.
White Rock is like a small subdivision in any other town (sorta). Population 5700. We are 1000ft lower in EL than Los Alamos. You wouldn't think that would make much difference but it does in the southern tip of the Rockies. We are always 3-5 degrees warmer for afternoon highs. We get less rainfall in the monsoon season and the growing season is usually longer and we have more sunshine to boot in the Summer. It's easier to garden here than "up in town". The only gotcha is we are actually colder in the AM than uptown. Cold air falls and settles in the morning so we are usually 3-4 degrees colder most mornings in the Winter. Late frost can bite you in the buttocks and we can't safely plant until Mothers Day usually. But we warm up faster as soon as the sun comes up.
We have a fairly low State income tax and very low property taxes and gas taxes. NM does tax SS as well as pensions and usually doesn't come up on the list of best places to retire in any of those online articles due to that. This is a poor state, one of the poorest for sure. We are up there with MS and WVA. If it wasn't for the National Labs both in LA and ABQ it would be even worse. We do however live in one of the safest Cities/Counties in the US. But, if you leave and go say to ABQ you kinda take your chances a bit. If you are moving across the country and happen to make the mistake of stopping in ABQ with your UHaul for the night at a hotel/motel you will more than likely wake up to find your van/trailer missing as well as all your stuff. Very high crime rate. Mostly due to drugs. On the other extreme, here in Los Alamos, we are able to leave our windows open in the Summer and sleep safely at night. We are able to leave them open and go on vacation and not be broken into. We are quite isolated and have an excellent police force that is very visible. If we were to move out of LA and say to ABQ or Las Cruces (warmer climes) I would not live anywhere but a gated subdivision. We are kinda in a "Leave it to Beaver" time warp here. Always has been I think.
We look at AZ as a possibility if we were to ever get out of Dodge as they say. They are a much friendlier State as far as taxing SS and pensions and no state income tax. But I have this theory that if you don't have a state income tax or tax SS or pensions your are probably taxed out the wazzu on your property taxes and or gas taxes etc. IOW the State gets their $$$ one way or another. You just have to decide how and who you want to pay it to!
It takes the body several weeks to adjust to high altitude and we are considerably higher in EL than Denver but nobody seems to brag about it much really. Baking takes some adjustments! Los Alamos has an EL of just over 7300ft. We live in what I jokingly like to refer as the "banana belt" of White Rock (8 miles down "the hill" from Los Alamos) which was a construction camp originally when it popped up way back in late 40's. It was abandoned sometime after that and transferred to the County in the early 60's for housing development as they were running out of land to build houses on already due to many factors like topography and the fact that all the land around was either owned by the DOE, the US forrest service, the native pueblos etc. Land land everywhere but not a lot to be had to build on has always been a huge problem. Property prices have always been high due to this but the last year or two they have completely skyrocketed due to the fact that the Lab's budget has been increased by as much as 30-50% in some areas. The lab is set to hire ~1000 - 1500 people this year and there is no place to house them all. Makes being retired and not having a mortgage tempting to say the least.
White Rock is like a small subdivision in any other town (sorta). Population 5700. We are 1000ft lower in EL than Los Alamos. You wouldn't think that would make much difference but it does in the southern tip of the Rockies. We are always 3-5 degrees warmer for afternoon highs. We get less rainfall in the monsoon season and the growing season is usually longer and we have more sunshine to boot in the Summer. It's easier to garden here than "up in town". The only gotcha is we are actually colder in the AM than uptown. Cold air falls and settles in the morning so we are usually 3-4 degrees colder most mornings in the Winter. Late frost can bite you in the buttocks and we can't safely plant until Mothers Day usually. But we warm up faster as soon as the sun comes up.
We have a fairly low State income tax and very low property taxes and gas taxes. NM does tax SS as well as pensions and usually doesn't come up on the list of best places to retire in any of those online articles due to that. This is a poor state, one of the poorest for sure. We are up there with MS and WVA. If it wasn't for the National Labs both in LA and ABQ it would be even worse. We do however live in one of the safest Cities/Counties in the US. But, if you leave and go say to ABQ you kinda take your chances a bit. If you are moving across the country and happen to make the mistake of stopping in ABQ with your UHaul for the night at a hotel/motel you will more than likely wake up to find your van/trailer missing as well as all your stuff. Very high crime rate. Mostly due to drugs. On the other extreme, here in Los Alamos, we are able to leave our windows open in the Summer and sleep safely at night. We are able to leave them open and go on vacation and not be broken into. We are quite isolated and have an excellent police force that is very visible. If we were to move out of LA and say to ABQ or Las Cruces (warmer climes) I would not live anywhere but a gated subdivision. We are kinda in a "Leave it to Beaver" time warp here. Always has been I think.
We look at AZ as a possibility if we were to ever get out of Dodge as they say. They are a much friendlier State as far as taxing SS and pensions and no state income tax. But I have this theory that if you don't have a state income tax or tax SS or pensions your are probably taxed out the wazzu on your property taxes and or gas taxes etc. IOW the State gets their $$$ one way or another. You just have to decide how and who you want to pay it to!
I see. That is great news.
Whenever I look at climate west of the Rockies (i.e., when scouting for retirement/snowbird locations!
You have referred to the NM banana belt. Where would you say that includes (roughly)?
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Plenty of sunshine to charge your Tesla Varis! But we are one of those States (like TX) that has blocked the sale of Tesla's because of the sales model. There are quite a few here in town but I have no idea what they have to do if they require warranty service!
Thank you for all that info. For your sake, I hope that was a cut-and-paste, i.e., I hope it was not too much work, but I thank you in any event.
Altitude is a bit funny in my family. I don't mind it a bit -- I feel invigorated when hiking above 10k feet. My wife, on the other hand, has a very low tolerance, and feels very debilitated at altitude (fatigue, nausea...). However, we both think she could acclimate with time. Perhaps this is obvious, but our hiking experiences to date have NOT lasted weeks!
Who knows? A friend had us looking in Durango, but then we all started drifting (mentally) southwest. Hard to know where to stop!
In CT Tesla also has that sales restriction but we have a service center and now display/showroom location. All CT residents that have a Tesla (and there are a LOT) basically pickup the car in NY, NJ or MA when buying their car.
NM may not have a service center, not sure, but Tesla has mobile guys that perform lots of different repairs at the owner's home too.
@sour_grapes it sounds like you’d have a couple of hosts to visit whenever you make your next scouting trip out this way. Our offer to hang out still stands, once we’re past this shut down, of course.
Great write up on NM Mike.
mike
Great write up on NM Mike.
mike
Good writeup.
olusteebus
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Wow, did you see that snake?
bkisel
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I think I see it. Maybe after you get some responses you can say where in the photo to look?
Looks like it could be tail shaker, but I'm not familiar with the markings in that part of the country. Picture is not clear enough, but that is the right terrain. Did you see the snake when you shot it Mike?
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