Not Oklahoma

Some of my friends i've talked to back home have been asking me if Arizona looks anything like Oklahoma. i tell them, "Not at all!" I noticed i haven't posted any photos of what Tucson real looks like. As you can tell from the photos there's very little grass, because it's so hot and dry, it costs too much to water. Most of the landscaping is dirt, rocks, palm trees, and many varities of cacti, very few brick houses (most of the houses on the stuco architecture, of the mexican/spanish culture). There are four mountain ranges that surround Tucson, i can't remember all them. Even though it doesn't snow here in Tucson, but i'm told that you can see snow at the very tops of them during winter. Tucson is a little over 600,000 people, is only 1hr north of the border, so i hear there's lots of illegal immigrants here. Like every big city you have your good and bad parts of town. The South side the very bad part/ghetto area, and the BEST part is the Foothills of the Catalina Mts. That is where most of the very rich and retired live either in very nice houses/houses editions/apt editions. That part of Tucson is it's own part, i found it by accident trying to find someplace else. They have their own mall, golf course, schools, churches, and every buisness i have on the side of town i live in. Tucson is such a spread out city, such as the Foothills, from my apt it's a good 20-30 min drive. Basically anywhere there's space, a house is being built. As you can tell from the top picture, you can tell how they're practically building on any space that's available on the mountains. Houses would be built in places, you wouldn't think be safe or able to build a house. One thing i'm still having to get used to is the time difference. My parents are i were thinking it was only an 1hr because it's mountain time, but too much of our surprise, it's 2hrs behind time. Arizona is the only state that doesn't recognize Daylight Savings Time. I finally got curtains in my bedroom so the early sunrise won't wake me up. Here the sun starts to rise around 4:15, then the sun sets around 7:30ish. Once the sun is down, the night weather is great, the best time to go out.

Very little rain occurs in a year, but i hear the month of july is monsoon season for arizona. I'm told that it will just pour down rain randomly for good 20-30mins each day or more of july and amazing lighting storms will occur too. It's very interesting time i'm told, so i'm kind of excited to see what that's like. The temperature here has been very steady in the high 90s. This week and next few weeks or so, it will be getting up to 105, the hottest in a long time according to local weather. Because it gets so hot, i read that besides leaving children in a car, you are not to leave animals left in the car either w/out the windows down. If a policeman sees an animal locked in car w/out the windows rolled down, he is allowed to break open the window w/out the owner being there, and charge you w/animal endangerment and a heavty fine. Any damage that is done to your window when the policeman is breaking it, has to be payed by the owner of the car and not the police dept. So even though it does get pretty hot here, i think it's beautiful here!