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Arizona Republic took a survey and shared some of the results…

100 Reasons We Love Arizona

  1. Fuchsia bougainvillea so bright it hurts your eyes.
  2. Discovering that the movie Oklahoma! was filmed in Arizona.
  3. Wrens that make their home in cactuses. We call them cactus wrens. They are the state bird.
  4. No tolls on Arizona highways.
  5. The heady fragrance of orange blossoms… Not only brides love it
  6. Being passed on the highway by a gang of 60-something easy riders on Harleys
  7. Dave’s Electric Beer from Bisbee, the state’s first bottled microbrew (now closed), but Chili Beer now reigns.
  8. R. Carlos Nakai’s haunting Native American flute
  9. The Painted Desert after a light rain
  10. Sedona’s red rocks, a photographer’s paradise
  11. Wind-blown pinon trees along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon
  12. Bola ties. They’re goofy, but New Yorkers don’t wear them. The bola is our state tie.
  13. The smell of Hatch chilies roasting outside the Guadalupe farmers market in the fall.
  14. Chuckwalla lizards. We just like the name. Chuckwalla. Chuckwalla. Chuckwalla.
  15. The otherworldly landscape of Canyon de Chelly on the Navajo Reservation.
  16. Baseball spring training. Two words: Hot dogs.
  17. Rex Ranch in Amado, a collection of casitas that transports you back to the 1920s.
  18. The Arizona Diamondbacks, Phoenix Suns, Phoenix Coyotes and, yes, even the Arizona Cardinals.
  19. Being able to go mountain climbing and still be home for dinner.
  20. Living here for five years, being known as “an old-timer,” and remembering the good old days before all these new people moved in.
  21. A walk through the Petrified Forest.
  22. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West school of architecture in Scottsdale.
  23. The Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, Frank Lloyd Wright’s legacy.
  24. Eating strawberry-rhubarb pie at Mount Lemmon Café.
  25. Going from cactus to pine trees in less than an hour.
  26. Geckos running along our outside walls.
  27. Ultrahot Mexican food at Los Dos Molinos.
  28. Cactus All of them, even jumping cholla.
  29. Lizard drawings on the Pima Freeway.
  30. Beautiful mountains, including one shaped like a camel.
  31. Hiking down the Grand Canyon to Phantom Ranch and enjoying the beef stew dinner with chocolate cake.
  32. Spring flowers on the mountains and desert.
  33. The smell of creosote bushes after a desert shower.
  34. Shopping for Virgin Mary and Buddha statues at Sacred Rites in Flagstaff.
  35. Being able to justify owning seven pairs of sunglasses.
  36. Turf Paradise racetrack in Phoenix, from the peacocks at the front door to the horse murals on the walls.
  37. Watching monsoon storms cross the distant horizon.
  38. Seeing the full arc of a rainbow over the desert after a rain.
  39. Italian beef sandwiches at Wolfee’s restaurant in Scottsdale.
  40. Shuffleboard in the East Valley. Americans vs. Canadians, eh?
  41. Children riding the train at McCormick Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale.
  42. Mesa Market Place Swap Meet.
  43. Navajo tacos at Tuba City Truck Stop … more meat than beans.
  44. Barbecue sauce so hot it makes your head sweat.
  45. The warmth on your face after leaving an air-conditioned building in summer.
  46. Artists’ colonies in Gold Canyon. Who needs Greenwich Village?
  47. Diamondbacks’ third baseman Matt Williams‘ “cueball” head.
  48. Tempe’s huge backlit street signs visible from a mile away.
  49. Giant rabbits at Centerpoint in Tempe.
  50. Giant frogs at Arizona Center in Phoenix.
  51. Portal in southeastern Arizona, gateway to the Huachuca Mountains, hummingbird capital of Arizona.
  52. University of Arizona and Arizona State University in the 2003 NCAA basketball tournament.
  53. It’s a dry heat. Really. It matters.
  54. No humidity-frizzed bad-hair days.
  55. Cutting your own Christmas tree in the north-country forests.
  56. Hedgehog cactus blooms – so much beauty on so little water.
  57. Scottsdale’sIndian Bend Wash, an oasis in the desert.
  58. Luis “Gonzo” Gonzalez: baseball player, milk drinker, good guy.
  59. Taunting people back East in January for calling our desert “kitty litter” in July.
  60. Close, but not too close, to Las Vegas and Rocky Point.
  61. Phoenix’s Chase Field Ballpark with its flip-top lid. Baseball games withthe roof open.
  62. Cooking a pie in a homemade solar oven.
  63. More golf courses per capita than Iowa has hogs.
  64. Spotting elk and bald eagles along the route of the Verde Canyon Railroad.
  65. Goodyear’s Thunderbird Hot Air Balloon Classic – glowing bubbles on thedesert.
  66. Few flying insects, fewer mosquitoes. The only swats are at Chase Field Ballpark.
  67. Sitting with your legs dangling off the edge of the Flatiron in the Superstition Mountains.
  68. Driving east on McDowell Road in Phoenix between rose-colored buttes.
  69. Squealing like a kid as you shoot down Slide Rock in Oak Creek Canyon.
  70. The Phoenix Civic Plaza fountain. It looks like a fuzzy dandelion head.
  71. Palm trees. Like Arizona’s people, most aren’t native – they came here, they liked it, they stayed.
  72. Whole Foods grocery store: a foodie’s dreamland.
  73. USAirways Center, home of the Suns and a cornerstone of the revitalization of downtownPhoenix.
  74. Low property taxes – makes buying a house bearable.
  75. San Xavier del Bacmission, the “White Dove of the Desert,” south of Tucson.
  76. Polly Rosenbaum, born in September 1899, a state representative, revered and lived to 104.
  77. The Heard Museum of Native American culture in Phoenix.
  78. Picking up bargain antiques in Prescott and Glendale.
  79. The howl of a coyote in the morning.
  80. Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson.
  81. Roadrunners strutting across the road.
  82. Drinking watermelon aguas frescas (fruit drinks made from crushed melons) on the patio at Mango’s in Mesa.
  83. The legend of the Lost Dutchman’s Mine.
  84. Great ethnic  restaurants: Vietnamese, Korean barbecue, Middle Eastern, Brazilian, Ethiopian, Thai, Indian.
  85. A picnic at the rest stop in Texas Canyon against sandstone-colored boulders that shoot for the sky.
  86. Spring break in LakeHavasu.
  87. Arizona firefighters: hotties with shiny red trucks.
  88. Kitt Peak Observatory west of Tucson.
  89. Few natural disasters – no tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes. The monsoons can stay.
  90. Kartchner Caverns near Benson.
  91. Tovrea Castle, “the wedding-cake” house, in Phoenix.
  92. No daylight-saving time.
  93. Scottsdale Fashion Square: a shopaholic’s fantasy.
  94. You can tan all year long and get away with wearing short skirts to show itoff.
  95. A mariachi festival that puts the ole! in your day.
  96. Night swimming in your backyard pool, floating on your back and staring up at the stars.
  97. Block walls that allow you to go night swimming in the nude.
  98. Being known as “Zonies” by Californians.
  99. The Grand Canyon. Duh.
  100. Brenda DeVito’s fourth-grade class at Laguna Elementary School in Scottsdale. The kids sent us their 25 reasons they love Arizona, in the shape of the state, and then let us take their picture.