Thanks, Mig and TIS, for your kind comments. And to SC for posting the photo for me, and his kind comments--you bet I'm lucky!
TIS, one of the boasts of Prescott AZ, where we are now, is that it has "the best weather in the country." It's hard to dispute--more than 300 sunny days per year. We're 90 miles north of Phoenix in high desert (5300 feet elevation). Temperature range runs to 90 - 58 in summer (seldom have to use air in the mornings or at night), to 55 - 19 in winter. Occasional snows usually melt away by 3 p.m. Today the high was 70 and the low is probably going to be 35. Prescott also has a variety of architecture (including New England, Old West, Art Deco West and Southwestern), so movie crews are always filming scenes depicting New England or the Southeast here to take advantage of the sunshine (they just finished with "Jolene," with Donald Sutherland).
But I can't generalize the above to all of Arizona. The oft-repeated statement is that you can experience four seasons in a day in this state, and believe me, it's true--yesterday's range was 88 - 17. Phoenix and many other burgs in AZ are just intolerable infernos in the summer--115 to 118 regularly. And Phoenix is getting humid, too, because of the amount of air conditioning in use. Some of the northern areas are impassible in winter due to snow. Flagstaff, which is only about 80 miles north of us (but at 7k feet) is the state's "snowbowl," and gets over 100 inches of snow in an average winter.
We still have the house in NJ, and it's on the market--and it isn't moving. We're planning to move here permanently if and when it sells.