My neighbors tend to be snow/sun-birds. Only two of us on our block live year round.
Of us, only our home has air conditioning as opposed to evaporative cooling (swamp cooler). The latter may be cheaper to set up, but it also requires an annual setup involving replacing evaporation pads, descaling the recirculation circuit, etc. and it also falls flat on its face when the humidity rises along with the what. I remember something like it from back in 'Nam, and I don't miss it one bit.
The temps here in the high desert will get up to touch an occasional 110 for at least a month each Summer. Down lower in Tucson, it gets to the high one-teens (it was 107 past Monday), and may last longer; and In Phoenix the altitude is below 1500 and temps top 120 occasionally. My life, so far, has managed to avoid A/C failures. Good thing.
Such temperatures are bearable for an hour or two in the shade, until the Monsoon arrives. Then the humidity soars, and so does the discomfort. Using me as an indicator, I'm sensitive to sustained heat; but I'm not complaining. Yet.
Today's high was about 85 here in Sulfur Springs Valley (Sunsites-Pearce, our home). Bearable. Love the High Desert.
When I came here, I figured, heck all that wide open desert, shooting should be Snap. Not so. Most of the land is agricultural; crops and/or cattle. I figure, people gotta eat, so I'll look for something a bit more formal. The closest formal place is Douglas Municipal Shooting Park. It's an old retired Army Reserve Camp, and has a fairly well maintained set of ranges, all originally USGI qualification/training ranges, with the rifle range going out to 300 meters. Meters on the left, yards ion the right, steel at 50, 150, 300. To the right is the pistol range, to the left tis the ICE/CBP range. I'll take it, and we went Thursday, it;s a drive of 50 miles pretty exactly.
The wind picks up in the afternoon, and the yard sign stands/backers I use were starting to dance around 11:30 AM. Still 9-11:30 ain't a bad session, and I found an issue with a scope mount. One out of five rifles that had been rescoped; the other four ringing steel at 300. I need to replace the rings with something a bit sturdier, and I have the rings at home. I tried to eke by with UTG's but I'm going to replace them with the Vortex six-screw rings sitting in the scope bits drawer.
So my concerns have been addressed, and so I say come on down to the Border and try Cochise County, AZ.
Aside from that, in the past week, The only gas station in town with the only ATM is closing in two weeks, the Cable TV company is withdrawing TV service in November, and our parish priest was transferred to Douglas as of Monday, we found out last Sunday.
We're Arizonans, and all this, too, will pass. Hardy bunch, us.
Greg
