We are thinking of selling our home in SF and moving somewhere cheaper...need suggestions for

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

185. I currently live in Santa Fe, NM,

and I find the trashing of this state to be wrong.

I moved here from Overland Park, Kansas, some nine years ago after a divorce. I've lived in lots of places, including Boulder, CO which truly is incredibly expensive. The home we used to own there would now sell for over 6 times what we paid. Meanwhile, my modest home in Santa Fe is worth about what my former home in Overland Park is worth.

Albuquerque has all the advantages and drawbacks of any big city. I have also lived in Tucson (went to high school there) and Phoenix (four years as an adult and my younger son was born there). You could not pay me to live in Phoenix. Entirely too hot and far too many of the residents think that now that they don't have to shovel snow off their cars in winter, all problems are solved. However, there is much more to quality of life than whether or not you'll be shovelling snow of your cars in winter.

This state is reasonably blue, even though the current Governor is a Republican, Susana Martinez. She won her first election in 2010 mainly because the residents here were quite fed up with Bill Richardson, and the Democrat running that year was Richardson's Lieutenant Governor, Diane Denish was tainted simply by her connection to him. In 2014, five Dems were in the primary, and the voters in their infinite wisdom, chose Gary King, largely because his father had been Governor some years before. Dumb. I will only say I didn't vote for him in the primary. He ran a crappy campaign and lost.

The down side of living here is that the corruption is breath-taking. Things like a sheriff being caught selling county equipment on eBay. A recent Secretary of State resigned after it was learned she had used campaign money to finance trips to casinos. Just yesterday there was a story that someone embezzled $200,000 from Northern New Mexico College, and an unnamed official has resigned. It goes on and on.

Another down side is that outside of Los Alamos County, home to Los Alamos National Labs, one of the richest counties in the country with an amazing concentration of PhDs, public schools aren't very good. Lots and lots of reasons underlay that, but if you have school-aged children either move to Los Alamos or check out the private schools in different cities before moving here.

The up side is that the scenery is gorgeous! The cost of living, even in supposedly expensive Santa Fe ( I live here, remember, and my income is well below the national median, and somewhat below the local median) is relatively low. The climate in Santa Fe is, in my opinion, spectacular. I grew up in northern New York State. I've lived in Tucson, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Boulder, the Kansas City area, the DC area, and this is wonderful. They only claim 300 days of sunshine a year, but I doubt there are as many as ten days in a year that are fully overcast. Almost always the sun shines at least part of the day. The night skies are fabulous! I go outside and marvel at what I can see.

It is also a state with an enormous amount of things to see and do. We have a whole bunch of museums here in Santa Fe. Many more around the state. Roswell, which you probably know as the site of a supposed UFO crash, has two incredibly good art museums, as well as a fascinating UFO museum. In Albuquerque there's the Nineteen Pueblos of Northern New Mexico Museum, a museum of Nuclear Science and Industry. Carlsbad Caverns. It goes on and on. I've barely scratched the surface in my time here.

People here are nice. It doesn't hurt to know Spanish, but you will absolutely not be handicapped if you don't speak a single word of that language. The locals take one look and know which language to use. I personally find the chile on almost everything to be rather tiresome. A couple of weeks ago I was back in the Kansas City area and ate wonderful barbecue and Middle Eastern food. But the presence of red and green chile isn't enough to keep me away.

Overall, this is a wonderful place to live. Of course, what you consider wonderful might be very different from what I consider wonderful. Many people have posted good assessments of various parts of the country, many of which I'm familiar with.

Oh, and if you want more about Santa Fe or New Mexico, please feel free to PM me.

Hope you find a place you just adore!