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WHY WE CHOSE NEW MEXICO FOR OUR RETIREMENT

August 25, 2020 Pearl Leave a comment

So, why DID we choose New Mexico for our retirement?

A friend of mine recently asked if I would mind going through some of the reasons that we decided on retiring here in New Mexico. She and her husband are not yet ready for retirement but, just as we thankfully did, have come to the realization that it is never too early to start thinking about that major change in one’s life.

These answers will include not only why we chose New Mexico but also in some instances why DIDN’T we choose some other places.

Because of my 12 year employment with API Software in Wisconsin, I had an opportunity to fly all around the country. All during my travelling, but particularly during the last four or five years before I retired, I began looking at the places to which I travelled through the lens of … “Would you want to live there, year-round?”

Winter avoidance

One priority was getting away from the cold winters. Lifetimes spent in Milwaukee, Bloomer and Waupun Wisconsin, left both Deborah and me with the conviction that we would not miss even mild Wisconsin winters at all. We could always still visit winter, on our terms, and that seemed like the best option.
- So we knew we were headed generally south but how far, and in which specific direction, that was yet to be decided.

Unbearable summer avoidance

Although we wanted to avoid the winter, neither of us could stand the idea of having to spend summers inside with air conditioning in order to avoid the miserable heat, humidity and bugs of many places.

Affordability

We are doing OK financially but we knew that we would not be able to afford much, given what we had to sell in Germantown. We were looking for places where we could have a good selection of 2/3 bedroom, 2 bath homes with 1500 or more square feet of living space, and if possible, a 1/4 acre lot or more. This needed to be kept under $300,000 so, if we had a mortgage at all, it would not be a significant one.

Natural disaster avoidance, if possible

Even though I had never had to personally experience some of our better known disasters, such as Earthquakes, wildfires, tornados and hurricanes, being in an area which was typically free from any of those certainly would be a plus.

An art community

Once the other things fell into place, this became a significant factor in us first seriously choosing to look into New Mexico.

Given those requirements, we were able to eliminate most southern U.S. locations, and my travel to most of those locations confirmed those eliminations.

Florida. We both kind of like Florida but the summers are horrible and hurricanes are something we chose to avoid.

Texas. Deborah lived in, and I often worked in and around Dallas, so we had some idea of what the summers were like in Texas. If we had chosen Texas, it would have been somewhere south near the gulf where summers might not have been so bad, but then you had the issue of hurricanes.

Arizona. Phoenix and Tucson summers are just terrible. We’ve been in both. Somewhere in more northern Arizona had advantages. We particularly like Sedona, but affordability was definitely an issue there.

California. The expense is just a total disqualifier. I love the San Diego area but I did not happen to retire from the Navy as an Admiral. Oh, and then there are also those annoying Earthquakes and wildfires …

A few non-southern locations were considered, albeit often briefly.

Hawaii. We love Hawaii. We could even put up with the occasional hurricane. But affordability is an issue as is the isolation from the rest of the mainland U.S. Granted, we don’t get a lot of visitors here in New Mexico but we would really be isolated there.
- FYI, we have a 19 day trip planned for Molokai and Kauai in late February 2021, if the Covid and travel situation has improved by then.

Pacific Northwest. We love to visit Portland and Seattle, and their winters are certainly milder, especially the nearer the ocean you are. But the few, beautiful summer, spring and fall days do not compensate for all that rain and overcast. Plus, there is the affordability option once again.

North/South Carolina. Having travelled and worked in the Research Triangle (Raleigh/Durham), that location and also the city of Charlotte were considerations. In fact, Charlotte may have been our second choice to New Mexico. I had worked numerous times for Duke University, and we attended a wedding and vacationed briefly in Charlotte. I particularly liked how Charlotte has become such a professional sports city. NASCAR, not so much.

Denver/Colorado Springs. Not really all that far from where we are now but winters there are a totally different animal.

Which brings me to New Mexico. Deborah had travelled here on a few occasions and had definitely been intrigued by the art communities, particularly those in Taos and in Santa Fe. In fact, she says that a painting by Native American RC Gorman, that hung in her office and home for many years, influenced her in her affection for this part of the country.

The strong presence and influence of both Native American and Hispanic cultures in New Mexico were also important factors in Deborah’s decision making process.

I had a chance to travel here and work for a couple of local hospitals, one in Santa Fe, and the other main one here in Albuquerque. Deborah had even joined me on one trip.

Our first trip here together amounted to a vacation where we would visit the three, main areas (for us) – Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos in 2010. We flew into Albuquerque, then drove and first visited Taos. Then we headed south stopping in Santa Fe and finally drove back and stayed in Albuquerque.

We liked northern New Mexico generally because of its location in the far south of the U.S., and yet with high elevations (Albuquerque 5000’, Santa Fe 7000’ and Taos 9000’. That provided the mild winters we were looking for, with certainly Albuquerque having the mildest of the three. We average about 310 days per year of sunshine.

New Mexico is affordable and we had many other options in our price range, particularly in the Albuquerque metro area.

Since I was still employed by API and travelling when we began to seriously consider locations for retirement, we decided to live in Santa Fe for at least 6 weeks, and also in various locations in Albuquerque. Taos was just too far north, too high elevation, too isolated and frankly very much a small town.

Since I could work remotely, Albuquerque’s airport was a primary consideration. I could fly from our Sunport here to anywhere in the country via Southwest Airlines.

Santa Fe

We first rented a condo in Santa Fe and stayed there for 7 weeks, at a different time of the year than when we had vacationed in 2010. I took the local commuter train (the New Mexico Rail Runner) from Santa Fe to the Albuquerque Sunport and was then easily able to then fly to any destination in the country for work.

We lived near downtown Santa Fe and we definitely like certain aspects of the city. However, the art community was very high brow – very upscale. There is also a tremendous difference between the haves and the have nots in Santa Fe. It is the home of many very wealthy celebrities, artists and business people.

To be affordable, without being in some of the much poorer areas of the city, we would have had to live in one of the developments outside of the city. In fact, a place we considered seriously enough to look at some homes, was in the community of El Dorado, which is about 10 miles east of Santa Fe.

Bernalillo

About a year later, we stayed for 6 weeks at a very old, and very rugged but quaint little adobe home in the northern Albuquerque suburb of Bernalillo. This gave us a chance to be nearer to the city without having to live right in it. There are a few other options for that in the area, which we may have eventually tried had we not felt pretty comfortable in the northern suburbs. I occasionally took the Rail Runner to the airport from Bernalillo but more often than not, Deborah and Lucas drove me in and picked me up (one way, about 25 miles for which I got reimbursed by API).

Downtown Albuquerque

Less than a year after Bernalillo, we stayed for 6 weeks at a condo very near downtown Albuquerque. We wanted to get a chance to see what city life was more like, and not having to ride the Rail Runner to the airport was a definite plus.

I believe it was during this time that I became aware of, and visited, the Albuquerque Zoo and BioPark. That would later become one of my numerous locations for volunteer activities.

During one of my work trips, I believe, we also had a chance to experience our first Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. That is a major, annual event here in Albuquerque, each early October (though for the first time since it began in 1972, not this year because of Covid). That, too, has become one of my volunteer activities as I am a docent and guide at our International Hot Air Balloon Museum. I also volunteer for other activities during the nine days of the Fiesta each year.

Click on the following link to view some of our best pictures from Balloon Fiesta over the years.

Albuquerque’s Annual Balloon Fiesta

For some of the reasons previously stated, it was during this last stay at the condo in downtown Albuquerque that we began to seriously look at homes. We hadn’t really planned on moving here until likely after I retired. But during that trip, and those visits to homes, we found our present home here in Rio Rancho and Deborah pretty much knew it the minute we walked into the home, and into the backyard which has an unobstructed view of the nearby Sandia Mountains. We saw the home for the first time in March of 2014 and moved in on August 1st.

Rio Rancho

Rio Rancho is a northern suburb of Albuquerque. We are located about 15 miles as the crow flies, and about 20 miles via Interstate 25, from downtown Albuquerque.

We found the adobe style home that we wanted and with a wonderful view of the mountains that we also wanted.

The home was ready to live in but also presented a number of opportunities for improvements, including developing our large backyard area which has always been one of Deborah’s retirement dreams.