Finally got the job! I'm going to be a Yuman!

I have no advice.  I just wanted to congratulate you!!

No advice here either, but I do know that Nogales is right on the AZ/Mexico border, so if you might want to cruise into Mexico for lunch that would be something to consider.  Congrats on the job!!

Joyce

 Thanks for the congrats everyone.  It's been a 9 month job search and I was starting to get down on myself.

Sunshinegirl

I have a friend who lives in AZ. I will ask and let you know what she says.

Thanks I look forward to hearing what she has to say.   It'll be hard to make this choice by Monday.

Every one of those places is IMMEDIATELY on the border with Mexico...  What are you going to be doing?  Border Patrol??

Nogales is going thru a thing right now - there's a town of the same name on the Mexican side that just had flooding.  There's something going on with fixing a giant underground pipe or something - it flooded downtown Nogales, Sonora, Mexico.

Never been to any of those places - in fact, I'd never heard of Lukeville.  But I've been about 10-15 miles away from Nogales at Patagonia Lake - it's very pretty.  I don't really know much about any of those areas, but I can ask my BF or coworkers.  They've all been here longer than me.

Edit - link for Nogales: http://www.cityofnogales.net/ .... for San Luis: http://www.cityofsanluis.org/

I get the impression that Lukeville is essentially a thr-way.  Of the towns, I think I would go with Nogales just because it's larger and would be more likely to have the facilities you want.  Although the website for San Luis looks promising.

miranadobe

Every one of those places is IMMEDIATELY on the border with Mexico...  What are you going to be doing?  Border Patrol??

Good guess!  Yep, it's with customs and border patrol as an agricultural specialist.  (ex. M'am you can't bring that avocado across the border)  I'm really between Nogales and San Luis but leaning towards San Luis.  San Luis is less than 30 minutes from Yuma, which has recently reached 1/4 of a million people. 

swamper

  San Luis is less than 30 minutes from Yuma, which has recently reached 1/4 of a million people. 

That's amazing!  Years and years ago we drove from San Diego to Albuquerque and of course that meant driving through Yuma.  I left there feeling like the population of the entire state was maybe 30 people and we had just seen 29 of them in the pancake house.

Joyce

The beauty of Arizona, I suppose - things are spreeeeaaaad out.  But once you hit a city, you'll find millions. :)

I moved here from New England - almost complete opposite end of the country.  I love it, aside from driving.  Well, anything involving the cars - if I don't have covered parking, my car COOKS in the sun.  Just opening the door is like opening an oven, let alone touching anything.  If you accidentally brush anything metal, you will burn yourself.  

Of course, that's just mostly middle of June to Sept, I guess - summertime.  The rest of the year it's great to have 80 degree weather for Christmas.

Hope you like it here!

It's a difficult choice.  Some of the boards where I've posted aren't helping by calling it "choosing between Hell and the surface of the sun".  This is a good job and I won't have to be there forever.  But I will have to put up with it for a couple of years and just want to make it easier on myself.

swamper

  Some of the boards where I've posted aren't helping by calling it "choosing between Hell and the surface of the sun". 

An awful lot of people choose to live and/or retire there, so it can't be all that bad. I'm sure every business and home has AC and you can certainly pick what times you want to stay outside.  I think it would be my choice over waist deep snow drifts and ice storms any day ... but what the heck to I know.  I live with earthquakes, fires and mud slides.

Joyce

Well, as a long-time resident of Scottsdale told me the other day -
"It's 10 months of paradise for 2 months of hell" 

fuzzy_dogs_mom

I'm sure every business and home has AC

Actually, make SURE you have AC.  A lot of homes around here use "evaporative" cooling - also known as a swamp cooler.(google it)  Works great until you have the humidity of the monsoon season.... which to me is when you want cool. non-humid air the MOST!

As a fellow AZ resident, I can share the ugh part of monsoon season. Coming from IL it doesn't bother me so much, but poor Ginger is storm phobic (just shaking and sadness, not destructive behavior) so I always groan a bit when it starts to go grey.

I'm not near any of the cities mentioned, so no advice there unfortunately.  As someone who doesn't like the cold, I like living here though

Thanks for all the input, it looking like I'll be moving to San Luis/Yuma.  This is so scary and exciting.  I hope Maya will adjust well.  She doesn't like the heat OR the cold.  She'll just have to put up with air conditioning and more dawn/dusk walks.  But she'll be happy to see me after those 12 weeks of training.