Greetings, denizens of the Twin Cities. I bring you fair tidings from Phoenix, land of 65-degree winters and scorching summers. Why are you reading me instead of your usual host, Bonnie Erickson? Because we’re participating in the great Yankee Blog Swap – a chance for readers of multiple real estate blogs across the nation to become very confused by a new voice and photo.
From what I understand of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, most of you spend the winter months shuttling from one heated area to the next with as little outdoor exposure as possible. For us it’s the summers where we live like Gollum, eschewing the Yellow Face driving temperatures into the one-hundred-teens and only coming out at night when it’s a far more bearable 94 degrees at 11 p.m.
From everything I read about this blog swap, my article is supposed to be real estate related. But that really doesn’t sound like a lot of fun to me. So instead I’ll tell you about my grand excursion to your backyard a few years back.
I’ve been to Minneapolis once – I spent three days and three nights there in July 2000, visiting a friend living in Plymouth. My first TC experience came at the airport, where I discovered the gates are numbered sequentially with the lower-numbered gates closest to baggage claim. If memory serves, my flight landed at Gate 824 and it took me about 45 minutes to walk to where my bags were waiting. (No such problems flying Sun Country home, aside from the shock of discovering there still were 727s taking to the skies … I found a Hughes Airwest bag of peanuts in the seatback pouch in front of me.)
While there are multiple fine things about the Twin Cities, the three coolest had to be these:
- Driving across the Mississippi River. I’d flown over it a couple of times, but being that close to Old Man River was remarkable. (My friend, incidentally, thought I was the biggest dork in the world for being amazed by this. She lived a few blocks away.)
- Having lunch at St Anthony Main, mere yards from the aforementioned Mississippi.
- Catching a Twins game (no Saints tickets were available and, to my chagrin, scalping appears to be illegal there). I bought a ticket in the left-field stands, a Dome dog, large coke, nachos and parked for $23.50. In Phoenix, that total would barely get me a ticket and a parking spot.
The Mall of America was impressive, incidentally, but I don’t see the point to having two Victoria’s Secrets, three Foot Lockers and 68 Gaps in the same shopping complex. It also was odd viewing the plaque for Harmon Killebrew’s milestone home run, now sponsored by Cinnabon.
Having said that, there were three items that had me missing the Valley of the Sun:
- Speed limits. We don’t pay attention to them here. Not often, at least. In Minneapolis, I was driving exactly 55 (54 in some areas) and it drove me nuts.
- A grid system. You have to work to get lost in Phoenix. Central Avenue down the middle. Streets to the west. Avenues to the east. Very eight blocks is another mile (so 67th Avenue is one mile from 75th Avenue, etc.) Pretty basic. In Minneapolis, I turned the wrong way leaving the Metrodome and was in Golden Valley on my way to Pierre before I used my sextant and the gibbous moon to find my way back home.
- The Metrodome’s Force 8 wind. At that time I weighed, well, somewhat more than two bills. And on my way out of the dome, I was blown forward a good eight feet. Nothing … NOTHING … should shove a man my size that far. Except my wife.
I must admit, I give all of you all the credit in the world for acclimating to such climes. To me, waking up to 2 degrees on the way to a daytime high of 5 degrees seems like some sort of cruel joke. Is there a point to the sun rising for its six hours a day in such circumstances? My friend used to have to get off the phone with me once her bus reached its stop and she walked the half-block home lest her phone freeze to her face. Seriously. I can’t imagine it.
Here’s one semi-real estate related note before I return you to your regular programming. Should you ever come to Phoenix, be prepared for a shock if only in the sheer size of the place. We put the “aw” in “sprawl.” The greater Phoenix metro area stretches from Buckeye (let’s say 235th Avenue or so) in the west to Queen Creek (let’s take a wild estimate of 220th Street) in the east. That’s 460 blocks which translates into … remember from above? Just under 58 miles. That’s east-west. Going north-to-south, you stretch from Maricopa in the far south portion of the county to Anthem in the far north … I’m not going to look It up, but 50 – 60 miles would be a good guess.
Because of the sheer size of the place, we build out more than up. We also fence our yards. That may or may not be common back there, but I’ve had many Midwestern clients ask me why we would do such a thing. My answer? Because we felt like it. (Real answer: I haven’t got a clue.)
So that’s about it for my rambling today. Should you ever find yourself curious of what else there is to the desert, or just want to stop by to tell me to keep my heat-chapped Southwestern tuchas to myself, feel free to visit me at my Phoenix Arizona Real Estate blog.
Jonathan Dalton, REALTOR, Phoenix, Arizona
A simple requirement: write for consumers. A simple honor: be one of the magnificent seven. A simple choice? Not for Larry Cragun author of the "Undressed" blogs who tries to make real estate and mortgages "simple" for consumers. Larry reviewed blogs throughout the blogging world and chose seven to be on his magnificent list for 2006. Thank you, Larry, for naming me one of the Magnificent 7!
