Seven years ago when my husband and I were preparing to move to Arizona, we were looking everywhere for information on what it would be like compared to where we already lived: Utah. At one point we clicked on a YouTube video that was titled “The differences of Arizona and Utah” and it ended up LITERALLY being a thirty second video of a guy saying, “They’re about the same”. Lol
Well, now that I’ve had a decent handful of years in both states, I decided that I’m going to be that blog post that I was searching for in the spring of 2018. So I know this is a super niche post, but yeah it is what it is.
SO HERE ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN UTAH AND ARIZONA
(also no real organization. Just writing whatever comes to mind)
Whenever I visit Utah and relatives ask me about Arizona, they only want to talk to me about the heat haha. And I guess that’s everyone’s first consideration about Arizona is how hot living in the middle of a cactus forest is.
So yeah, it’s hot. And summertime is bunkering down into survival mode honestly. I’ve said this before (which is also a good post about AZ) but the heat is very similar to when you have to bend down and pull cookies out of the oven. But it’s only when you go outside. The weird part that I never really hear people other than Arizonans talk about, is that during the summer here in the valley EVERYWHERE (stores / vendors / businesses) is completely REFRIGERATED inside. It’s really bizarre. Because it’s 120 degrees outside, but the AC is pumped SO HARD inside Texas Roadhouse that you’re shivering lol. I’ve literally seen people walk into the grocery store in the dead of Arizona summer and bring their jackets with them. It’s sort of weird though, okay. Because during the summer you’re in the constant extreme temperature changes and it’s bursts of refreshing feels. Like, I don’t know how else to explain this? You’ll walk from your car into the doctor’s office sweating like crazy and then as soon as you get into the building you’re like “Ahhhhh that feels amazing.” And then by the time you get out into the heat from the serious AC you’re like, “Ahhhh that feels amazing.” Hahaha!
As far as compared to Utah. It’s the same as the winter, just opposite timing. In the wintertime you stay indoors. And here in the summer you stay indoors. That’s pretty much it. Utah winters, it’s a pain in the ass to scrape your car, shovel your driveway and navigate I-15 in the snow. And Arizona summers, it’s a pain to touch your steering wheel when you get into your sunny car. Literally a pain. But other than the super sweaty car seat, I don’t think the maintenance of the heat is quite as bad as the maintenance of the snow. That’s my opinion of living here. Like, yeah you might have to turn on your AC and cool your car down. But it’s not like you have to turn your car on to warm it up and also physically dig it out of the ice to get to work. I don’t know. So in my personal opinion, I think the Arizona summers aren’t quite as challenging as Utah winters. As far as maintenance or commuting. Like if you WANT to take family pictures you really could year round. Whereas in Utah it’s a little more challenging to do that around the weather.
If you are familiar with Utah and their cities and you’re wondering which area of Arizona you want to move to (at least in the Phoenix / East Valley), I can tell you what compares. I would say Mesa is comparable to West Valley or Layton. And Gilbert is just Provo basically. Like I’ve seen more BYU bumper stickers in Gilbert than in Provo itself, if that gives you some idea. Scottsdale is like Park City, it’s beautiful and got cool things to see but unless you’re a professional baseball player I don’t see how you could afford to live there. Phoenix equals Salt Lake. That one’s easy. Apache Junction is like Vernal if it got overrun by a fentynal zombie apocalypse.
Okay, so if you’re on the fence about moving to Arizona from Utah. I’ve created a little quiz to help you decide:
QUESTION ONE: Can you eat a plate of fries without fry sauce? if the answer is no, stay in Utah.
QUESTION TWO: How many golf courses do you need within a 2 mi radius? Because if the answer is more than three, you want to be in Arizona.
QUESTION THREE: Do you like the color beige? If the answer is no, stay in Utah.
QUESTION FOUR: Do you need trees to breathe or can you get oxygen from turf?
QUESTION FIVE: Would you rather maintain a pool or shovel the driveway?
QUESTION SIX: Would you rather scrape ice off of your windshield with a credit card or have a pair of oven mitts in your car just in case you need to drive somewhere in the summer?
QUESTION SEVEN: Would you rather have an incredible 4th of July at a park with soft grass you can actually sit on? Or have a magical Halloween day where you don’t need a jacket over your costume and everyone’s outside on their driveway actually participating in trick or treating?
QUESTION EIGHT: Would you rather experience a full four (winter, spring, summer and fall) season? Or just a two (“Arrakis Hell” and “Snowbird”) season?
QUESTION NINE: Scorpions or Black Widows? It doesn’t matter, Arizona has both.
QUESTION TEN: Do you have a hobby of skiing or snowboarding? If yes, that’s fine we have Flagstaff.
QUESTION ELEVEN: Do you generally go 40 miles over the speed limit in any condition or street? If the answer is yes, welcome to Arizona.
(I literally just sat down and typed up all of the general advice I give people when they ask… you didn’t ask… but here you go anyway hahaha)
#1
If you are considering starting a family with someone, imagine what it would be like to raise that particular person as a child. Because you will be if you have a family with them. All the weaknesses and quirks they have will be present in miniature form. Is that something you can handle?
#2
If you’re test piloting a new relationship or friendship you can get a snapshot of the person’s recreational style by taking them on a hike. There are two types of people on a hike…
Person A: “Let’s go all the way to the top.” “C’mon, don’t slow down! Let’s see how fast we can do it!” “Let’s hang glide off the top and then go jet skiing after this.” Person B: “Wow, a creek! Let’s stop here and talk about life for an hour. Take a picture of me by this cool tree. Let’s follow this butterfly!”
Likely you found one of these hikes more fun than the other. The way someone hikes so often reflects their vacation style (packed itinerary vs relaxing) and just how they like to have fun in general. I’m not saying you wouldn’t be compatible with said person, because A and B people can help balance each other out. But I AM saying that this conflict will come up. And it’s just good to have a heads up on that and also test how flexible the other person is to the things you like to do.
#3
My top parenting advice is to watch Daniel Tiger together with your child. Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is written with extensive input from early learning specialists and it models the authoritative parenting approach extremely well. The little songs are short and easy to use in the moment. I just find Daniel Tiger super informative and helpful for both the parent and child.
#4
The other parenting advice (information) I have, is that you will be parenting yourself as you parent your children. Your children are not half as hard as parenting yourself so be an extra kind parent. Give yourself kind words when things are tough. Don’t force yourself to live up to anyone else’s expectations, let you be you! Take an interest in yourself and what you like and allow yourself to explore that. You know, all good kind parent stuff.
#5
Here’s something, a secret more than advice. Your thirties are going to be way better than your twenties. Yes, you’re skinnier in your twenties. Yes, you have more freedom to play around. But your thirties is when you finally step in to yourself. You’re smarter and generally more capable. Thirties are really really great. Don’t let the anti-aging cosmetic marketing team fool you.
#6
And finally, meet yourself where you are. Whatever that means for you. Little by little DOES make a HUGE difference. If you can’t do it all do the smallest part of it. Wash one pot. Clip your fingernail. Write one email. Have some takeout today. Good job! You did something, anything. And that’s all you need. The smallest steps have saved my butt.
I was really fortunate to join one of my very best friends in Las Vegas for a writing retreat last NaNoWriMo. We stayed in the fabulous Caesar’s Palace and garnered a LOT of very strong opinions by the end of the trip.
So these are our tips. The do’s and don’ts for staying there:
1 DO: WALK ACROSS THE STREET AND SEE BEATLES LOVE
So obviously I’m pretty bias, but just as a show itself, t is INCREDIBLE! I’ve never seen a Circ Du Soleil that has unimpressed me. The Mirage has been bought out by a new owner and there’s some whisperings of Beatles Love ending. So if you have the chance, I highly, highly recommend seeing this show before it slips out of existence. And I’m going to tell you this because no one told me this. But the cheaper “nosebleed” seats aren’t far from the stage at all! And in fact you get a little bit better vantage point than those in the front row. The performance to Within You, Without You is worth the fifty bucks alone. Absolute chefs kiss.
2 DON’T: EAT AT THE FORUM FOOD HALL
When I got to Caesars I was pretty hungry and wanted “a quick bite” before holing up in the room and writing. So I went to Bobby Flay’s to get a burger. First off, the menu should have tipped me off because they have this thing called The Crunchburger. Which is a plain cheeseburger with potato chips squished on the top. It made me laugh because allegedly my late father-in-law used to do this so often to the disgust of his children, that my husband complains every time I buy Sour Cream and Cheddar chips and calls them “fart chips”. I did not in fact order the famous Crunchburger. I ordered the “Brunch-burger”. Which was a plain cheeseburger with a fried egg and bacon. When I went to pay, the card reader malfunctioned a literal four times. And I hope to all that is good and holy that it did not charge me more than once, because this brunch burger meal was already THIRTY DOLLARS. They give me my buzzer and I sit at a table and start writing while I wait for that thing to go off. I waited and waited and waited. I waited for forty five minutes before I was like… alright. Why did I come here for a “quick bite”?? I could have gone to a sit down restaurant and paid the same and waited less time for my food. I eyed someone in line. A young girl dressed in granny-core. I thought okay if this sixty-year-old sixteen-year-old gets her food before mine comes out. I’ll know something is wrong with my order and it’s not usually this long of a wait. Lo and behold, Granny Moses gets her crunch burger instantaneously. So I went up to the pick up counter to ask them what was going on. They just never even had a ticket for my food. Like I have no idea what happened. The card reader eventually worked, I had a receipt to show them. I mean, I got my burger. An hour after I ordered it. So… a ticket malfunction isn’t necessarily the restaurant’s fault. But it was still a bummer.
3 DO: GET A MASSAGE AT AVALON DAY SPA IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD QUA BATHS AND SPA
It’s really difficult to find the price for Qua Baths and Spa online. So I’ll out them here. A basic massage and facial costs $450 for a hotel patron. So we got a Groupon for a couples massage at Avalon Day Spa for $48 each. And it was really great! They included a scrub and a hot stone massage. It was great. My masseuse even cracked my back. I felt like jelly afterwards! I highly recommend them. It’s a ten minute drive from Caesars. The area is a bit sketch and our Lyft driver said a lot of the massage parlors actually offer “happy ending” massages. But this place was legitimate and great!
4. DON’T: EAT AT THE FORUM FOOD HALL
Alright, even after I got my brunch burger it was … not good. The cheese was liquid nacho cheese which gooped all over my pants. The Bobby fry sauce was full ick. You’d think my starvation of waiting an hour would have made this mediocre meal taste better, but not really. I also want to complain about the soda. I paid five full dollars for a medium drink. Went over to the robotic dispenser to discover that there were only four options. And they were all weird. You could either have Pepsi, Diet Mountain Dew, Black Cherry Mountain Dew or Lite Lemonade. I tried Black Cherry Mountain Dew first and it came out as pure soda water. (I guess that was the most popular of the strange four choices?) So I took a diet Mountain Dew. Then later found out that across from my room was a vending machine that had bigger bottles of normal Mountain Dew for less than half the price of the food court.
5. DO: TAKE OUT A SECOND MORTGAGE ON YOUR HOUSE TO SHOP AT NECTARS
I am NOT SPONSORED OR AN AMBASSADOR OR A PERSONAL FRIEND. This is just my honest experience with these products. My friend had gotten there the night before I arrived. And she told me she went to this luxury bath supply store downstairs. Now, admittedly, I was totally skeptical when she was passionately sung it’s praises. I have NEVER spent that kind of money on bath supplies. (And neither had my friend). But she said they gave her a free sample so I thought that was worth walking in there. While my best friend was at a business conference I went to that shop, which smelled AMAZING by the way, FULLY intending to take the free sample and get out of there. I was only in there for fifteen minutes and I already had one hundred dollars worth of products in my arms. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. But that was single-handedly the best bath of my entire life.
Here’s my text exchange with my friend when I got out:
ME: What the actual F luxury did I just experience? Is heaven missing their bath products cuz I think so. Excuse me Bath Products did you fall from heaven? Because that’s the only explanation here.
HER: LOL Okay worth every penny right? Absolutely out of this world.
ME: I’m about to become a nectar hun like wtf. ME: Hey Hun! Have you tried Nectar? I don’t even make a commission I just want you to experience euphoria.
HER: Pseudo MLM just to spread the word
ME: Nectar missionary. Spread the true word omg
HER: I STAND BY THIS. My new religion.
So you should get something from there. They have locations at Caesars, The Mirage, The Venetian, MGM and LINQ. I highly recommend the sugar scrubs and my friend highly recommends the body butter. We got products in “sugar crush”, “cool cactus” and “lavender”. But all the scents are amazing and they even let you customize. I love these products so much I use them almost daily now and bought even more.
6. DON’T: EAT AT THE FORUM FOOD COURT
I thought it was this one off deal you know. That maybe Bobby Flay’s just wasn’t for me and that happened to be a not-good-lunch that day or whatever. So when my friend and I came back to the hotel after our massages, we planned to grab something to take back to our rooms and hang out there for the rest of the night. But we had no idea what was in store for us. We went back to the food court. And got in line for a Chinese food place which I’m not going to say the name of. I ordered a sweet and sour pork bowl and my friend ordered noodles. When I saw the guy ahead of us take his food I was like… I really hope that’s not what I just ordered. It was like pink blobby cubes in a sad looking rice bowl. I remember trying to decipher what it was. Tofu? Kinda looked like spam or something. Well, good news was I didn’t have to wait an hour this time. Bad news was I ordered the pink blobby cubes. I was starved right? So I thought meh it’ll probably be fine. On closer inspection the pinkish blobs were pineapple chunks (um… in a pink sauce I guess). So we took our food up to our room. Which BTW is a total maze through the casinos. We might as well have walked to Mordor and back. And as soon as we get there we find out that my friend had not been given the noodles she ordered. Instead, she had been given the same pink blobby cubes. We tried to eat it, man. We tried. It was horrific. The onions, dude. Something was really off with those onions. And the pork. I was literally Googling “Is gray pork okay to eat?” It’s like I just kept picking around the ingredients until finally I was trying to eat the rice and even that was yucky. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when I bit into my friend’s egg roll. As soon as I bit in, a hot and STRANGE liquid FILLED MY MOUTH. I actually spit out the egg roll and was like, “Dude… is this gross to you too?” And she was like “YES THIS IS HORRIBLE.” Keep in mind, we had just spent like thirty dollars each on this. It’s not like we could just throw our hands up like ‘Oh well’ and get something else! But there was no chance in hell we were going to be able to finish that food. We were both SICK. I couldn’t even smell the stuff anymore I had to take it out to the hotel hallway and throw it away. THE AFTERTASTE. No joke. It just never went away. I had to brush twice. So I would maybe just skip the forum food court if I were you haha.
7. DO: EAT AT PRONTO INSTEAD OR GO TO THE FORUM SHOPS AND EAT AT TREVI
ON THE OTHER HAND. If you DO want a quick bite, every single thing I had at Pronto was exquisite. It’s closer to the Palace Towers if you’re staying there, so you don’t have to walk to Mordor and I really highly recommend their gelato. I got it a couple of times. One scoop is pretty generous and costs $5, which was pretty inexpensive compared to everything else going on at Caesars. If you want a REALLY fabulous lunch or dinner. You need to walk down to the Forum Shops and eat at Trevi. It is GORGEOUS. I ordered the mushroom risotto and my friend had the steak. GIRRRRRL WHEN I TELL YOU!! Not only did we both clean our plates, but we sopped up every drop of the juices with our bread. The owner came over to our table and said, “He needed to hire us as dishwashers” lol. Trevi. It’s worth it. I promise.
BONUS: Zak Bagans’ Haunted Museum.
I have mixed feelings about this place. If you know me, you know that I’m majorly interested in the macabre, the paranormal and spiritual oddities. But this wasn’t totally what I thought that it would be. So I’m going to be very honest about the things I disliked and then you can decide for yourselves whether that bothers you or interests you. I was expecting a lot more fun paranormal haunts. I mean… it’s a HAUNTED museum. But what this place actually is, is half ghosts and half serial killer memorabilia. Now, if that’s something that fascinates you personally, that’s awesome because Zak’s museum has a massive amount of that stuff. For me… I don’t know. I felt that the presentation was disrespectful to the victims of these tragedies. I felt that I had unknowingly funded the exploitation of their deaths. That’s just my personal opinion. There’s also several real human remains at the museum and a few of those felt exploitative as well. The other half, the supernatural stuff, is demonic, satanic or cursed somehow. Which is exactly what I expected when I bought the ticket so I’m not complaining about that. I’m just putting it out there that in case you are particularly affected by that sort of thing. This is spiritually a very heavy gunky place. One girl in our group who “doesn’t even believe in ghosts”, started crying and had to leave the tour early. There was also a really weird component in the attic where you walked through a clown haunted house. I really, really love haunted attractions but that seemed so odd for some reason. I think the kitschy-ness kind of made the haunted artifacts feel less legitimate. But of course this is all completely subjective. Obviously, no one is going to make the kind of ghost museum that I want, because Grandma the friendly ghost isn’t going to sell tickets as much as Ted Bundy’s murder kit. So I’m neither recommending it nor discouraging you from it. The Museum is what it is. I mean, it’s Zak Bagans.
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