John Travels

I am writing this from Alpine, Arizona. It’s a very small town up in the White Mountains. I will write about Alpine later, but I wanted to first write about the week I spent in Flagstaff. As I mentioned in my last post, I am looking for a “home base”. I plan on traveling for an extended period, at least the next year and a half. We’ll see if that plan holds up, but that’s where I am right now. I need a city to have as a base, however. I need a doctor, a place to get my prescriptions, receive mail, that sort of thing.

I had gone to Flag partially for that purpose, but also just to enjoy the city. It’s beautiful and the weather is great in the summer. It was unusually hot during my stay, but highs were still in the 80s. Not bad. After visiting, I don’t think Flagstaff is the place. It’s just too expensive. I read a community discussion board and it seems a lot of people there are under financial pressure. One commenter said it was, “poverty with a view”. I think Arizona in general is quite expensive, but Flagstaff has some factors - land availability, local ordinances - that make it even more so.

Although Alpine and the White Mountains in general are stunning, there aren’t a lot of services up here. Show Low/Pinetop are the big towns and I don’t think I can get the type of doctor I need there. Plus, Show Low and Pinetop are also pricey. Anything within a day’s drive of Phoenix is going to be expensive because of the number of people trying to escape the heat. So next week I am headed back to New Mexico. I am going to check out Ruidoso. Although it is much less expensive than Flag, it isn’t the home base I am looking for because it doesn’t have much medical care up there. For that, I am thinking about Las Cruces, but I am going to avoid going to LC for a while because it is still quite hot there.

I also want to check out Silver City. It looks like a charming town with a nice historic downtown area and interesting local restaurants. I also love the culture in southern New Mexico. So I will wander around there for a while and see how it feels.

This is my hike in Flag, which for me was the highlight of the trip.