What would be best for us in Northwest Arizona? (Phoenix: health insurance, homes)
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My wife and I are considering a move to the Lake Havasu- Bull Head city- Kingman area. Despite the heat my wife loves the area and I just want to be near a lake we can relax at during my downtime.
My wife and I are both conservative leaning libertarians. To make my beliefs simple, I don't care what people do as long as they are not hurting anybody else, and think the government should get their hands out of our pockets and learn how to manage the money they already steal.
There are some serious issues in my family though and it has made knowing where in the area to go complicated. My daughter has a genetic disorder, at 21 she is the only one with her disorder to live past the age of 3, it has a multitude of long term affects, but the biggest is that we will require respite care and long term may require some home health care options. Because of the rarity of her disorder there is not much that doctors can do on a daily basis, although we want the Arizona side of the border for the Mayo clinic as we will be getting her on the Arizona health insurance exchange and want to see if there is something her doctors have missed over the years.
My wife has serious arthritis which is ultimately the reason for the move. she currently is a LPN doing home health care, so a job is not the issue as she is needed everywhere and hopefully once we get established for a couple of years she can retire. I am sure that there are athritis and pain doctors in the area?
I work from home and have to travel to Las Vegas every 3 months for meetings and the midwest occasionally. So being closer to Vegas helps but is not a huge priority.
Now comes the real issue. My son has come out as being gay. He is 15 years old. Right now we live in a very conservative area of Colorado, and he is harassed daily while the schools ignore it or even encourage it. HE has been in multiple fights and it grows more dangerous by the day. Is there is a town where he would be relatively safe in the schools and town as a whole in the Lake Havasu area?
My wife and I are considering a move to the Lake Havasu- Bull Head city- Kingman area. Despite the heat my wife loves the area and I just want to be near a lake we can relax at during my downtime.
My wife and I are both conservative leaning libertarians. To make my beliefs simple, I don't care what people do as long as they are not hurting anybody else, and think the government should get their hands out of our pockets and learn how to manage the money they already steal.
There are some serious issues in my family though and it has made knowing where in the area to go complicated. My daughter has a genetic disorder, at 21 she is the only one with her disorder to live past the age of 3, it has a multitude of long term affects, but the biggest is that we will require respite care and long term may require some home health care options. Because of the rarity of her disorder there is not much that doctors can do on a daily basis, although we want the Arizona side of the border for the Mayo clinic as we will be getting her on the Arizona health insurance exchange and want to see if there is something her doctors have missed over the years.
My wife has serious arthritis which is ultimately the reason for the move. she currently is a LPN doing home health care, so a job is not the issue as she is needed everywhere and hopefully once we get established for a couple of years she can retire. I am sure that there are athritis and pain doctors in the area?
I work from home and have to travel to Las Vegas every 3 months for meetings and the midwest occasionally. So being closer to Vegas helps but is not a huge priority.
Now comes the real issue. My son has come out as being gay. He is 15 years old. Right now we live in a very conservative area of Colorado, and he is harassed daily while the schools ignore it or even encourage it. HE has been in multiple fights and it grows more dangerous by the day. Is there is a town where he would be relatively safe in the schools and town as a whole in the Lake Havasu area?
You say despite the heat?
For your sake I hope that you plan on spending some time visiting the Lake Havasu City, Bull Head City, Kingman area during the summer. Lake Havasu City and Bull Head City is hotter than all hell with the Kingman area not too far behind. Coming from New York's cold and miserable winter's we once considered moving to those places. Figuring that not having to deal with winter would be a blessing. That is until we researched the area.
Now that we've lived in Arizona and know quite a few people who've lived in those types of places. I'm glad that we did not move there. According to them it's down right oppressive and they spend most of the time indoors going from an air conditioned vehicle to an air conditioned home or store. For about 5 months of the year you'll be in the 100's. July and August 110 or more. The hottest we've ever experienced was when it was 118 in Wikieup one year. The intense sun and oppressive heat beats the crap out of everything. You can get a 1st degree burn just touching a vehicle's door handle or seat belt buckle. Just getting inside is like sitting in an oven until the AC has time to cool it down. Although some people are okay with that I don't think that I could deal with it for at least 5 months out of the year.
As far as your son goes, he could probably find himself in that situation no matter where you go. I don't think that there's that much that the schools could do about that other than assigning a body guard for him. For as long as I can remember there's always going to be bullies in school and kids getting picked on just because they're different. It was like that when I went to school and I can't imagine it being any different today?
Myself, I've been a Conservative my entire life as was my entire family for generations. That's the way that I was brought up. An individual's sexual orientation is none of my business. We never talked or really cared about someone's sexual orientation unless they were incessantly rubbing our faces in it. All that we really cared about was an adherence to strict Constitutional Law and the principles of which this country was originally founded. If people disagreed with that then we'd have a problem with it.
Now that we've lived in Arizona and know quite a few people who've lived in those types of places. I'm glad that we did not move there. According to them it's down right oppressive and they spend most of the time indoors going from an air conditioned vehicle to an air conditioned home or store. For about 5 months of the year you'll be in the 100's. July and August 110 or more. The hottest we've ever experienced was when it was 118 in Wikieup one year. The intense sun and oppressive heat beats the crap out of everything. You can get a 1st degree burn just touching a vehicle's door handle or seat belt buckle. Just getting inside is like sitting in an oven until the AC has time to cool it down. Although some people are okay with that I don't think that I could deal with it for at least 5 months out of the year.
Lake Havasu and environs isn't the only area that's that hot during the five months of summer. We have to deal with it in the Phoenix metro as well. Generally people do their shopping and errands early in the morning because it doesn't cool off much overnight.
I could not live in Lake Havasu. All that sand, gravel and rock radiates heat like nobody's business. Lake Tahoe is much more my speed.
Don't do this to your son, and don't do this to your family.
Agree. Not the area of the state for that. It won’t be much different than the conservative areas of Colorado other than poorer and a bit more trashy. Without the kids, I’d say give it a shot.
As for your daughter, it’s a poor fit too. The healthcare up there is not great. You will be going to Vegas or Phoenix often
If you need to be in AZ and want Mayo, just move to the Phoenix area. If you work in Vegas move near Vegas. Vegas has adequate healthcare
If you want that area of the country and ate wanting to move anyway...why not look at Vegas? You said you need to be there physically for work, look at Henderson or something like that. Smaller towns along the Colorado River are not going to have the healthcare or support systems you are looking for.
As far as Mayo...you said something about the Arizona health insurance exchange...are you talking about getting her on AHCCS? Be aware, Mayo does NOT accept any patients on Medicaid. They are not a community care facility.
I don't think what you are looking for is going to exist along the Colorado River...you are going to have to give up your lake dreams or adjust them to doing what most others do, load up the boat and drive. With the water going down in all of the lakes downstream from Powell, that may be a short lived dream anyway. None of those lakes I would describe as "relaxing", especially Havasu.
Lake Havasu and environs isn't the only area that's that hot during the five months of summer. We have to deal with it in the Phoenix metro as well. Generally people do their shopping and errands early in the morning because it doesn't cool off much overnight.
I could not live in Lake Havasu. All that sand, gravel and rock radiates heat like nobody's business. Lake Tahoe is much more my speed.
I have antique cars and was taken in by homes in Lake Havasu City with those big RV and boat deep garages, the types that I could easily put a lift in. Then after a few realtors told us that we have to take into consideration that we'd be in the middle of the Mojave Desert where temperatures were similar to Death Valley, CA. It didn't sound too appealing after all. Having never experienced temperatures over 110 before we moved we had no idea what it would be like. In New York we sometimes got up to 95 with high humidity it was God awful. You start sweating like a pig when it's in the low 80's. But it's a dry heat out here at 110 so we were told. I guess the best way that I could describe a dry heat at 110 would be like sitting in an oven?
My mother came out to visit us one summer and we took a ride out to Wikieup. When we got to the Wikieup Trading Post the sign outside read 118 degrees. When we got out of our air conditioned vehicle it was like walking into a furnace. In Arizona whether you'll be in oppressive heat or not all depends on the elevation. If you're above 5,000 ft. like where we are it's ideal. If you're between 4,000 and 5,000 ft. the summers are pretty hot but tolerable. As the elevation drops it keeps getting hotter and hotter. At the opposite end once you get above 6,500 ft. you can expect to get a lot of snow. Of course I'm speaking in general terms.
But as far as Arizona goes both my wife and I absolutely love it here. Our favorite place is the Sonoran Desert which is only about an hours drive from us. When you're out there you know that you're in Arizona, it's iconic and screams it. If it wasn't for the summer heat we'd love to live out there. But if it wasn't for the summer's heat the landscape and vegetation wouldn't be anything like it is. Where we are we can enjoy both the desert and the mountains. The mountains are in our backyard and the desert is a short drive away.
For your sake I hope that you plan on spending some time visiting the Lake Havasu City, Bull Head City, Kingman area during the summer. Lake Havasu City and Bull Head City is hotter than all hell with the Kingman area not too far behind. Coming from New York's cold and miserable winter's we once considered moving to those places. Figuring that not having to deal with winter would be a blessing. That is until we researched the area.
Now that we've lived in Arizona and know quite a few people who've lived in those types of places. I'm glad that we did not move there. According to them it's down right oppressive and they spend most of the time indoors going from an air conditioned vehicle to an air conditioned home or store. For about 5 months of the year you'll be in the 100's. July and August 110 or more. The hottest we've ever experienced was when it was 118 in Wikieup one year. The intense sun and oppressive heat beats the crap out of everything. You can get a 1st degree burn just touching a vehicle's door handle or seat belt buckle. Just getting inside is like sitting in an oven until the AC has time to cool it down. Although some people are okay with that I don't think that I could deal with it for at least 5 months out of the year.
I should have been more clear, my wife likes the heat. Her arthritis affects her much less so less pain.
I spent many days physically working in temps above 105 degress, including 29 straight days. While everybody seems to believe Colorado is a cold snowy state, we have desert land and plenty of hot days. Especially on the western slope and far east plains.
I can handle the heat if needed but would prefer a nice move up to Montana if anything.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ex New Yorker
As far as your son goes, he could probably find himself in that situation no matter where you go. I don't think that there's that much that the schools could do about that other than assigning a body guard for him. For as long as I can remember there's always going to be bullies in school and kids getting picked on just because they're different. It was like that when I went to school and I can't imagine it being any different today?
Of course there have been bulies, and then there is local church screaming about how terrible gay marraige is and sinners should be condemned bullying. One is a natural part of life, the other is living hell. Talking jumped in the lockerroom with 2 teachers literally watching it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ex New Yorker
Myself, I've been a Conservative my entire life as was my entire family for generations. That's the way that I was brought up. An individual's sexual orientation is none of my business. We never talked or really cared about someone's sexual orientation unless they were incessantly rubbing our faces in it. All that we really cared about was an adherence to strict Constitutional Law and the principles of which this country was originally founded. If people disagreed with that then we'd have a problem with it.
I grew up around conservatives in conservative areas and families. Most conservatives are great people, the far right hyper religious are a totally different deal. I live in one of the highest church to resident ratio areas of the country. To top it off the area is very clanish, it is not how long you have lived here, it is how many generations. If your family left, than you can never be part of the crowd. It is a ****ty situation for a 15 year old.
Look at the map! It's flippin' BFE. There's going to be no support system for him and nowhere to turn out there. He's going to be isolated and mistreated and will hate every minute of his existence out there. I speak from personal experience growing up a gay boy in the sticks.
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