Wow...I always think of AZ as being incredibly hot. In fact, I often think of it as "Aridzona." FROST??? We seldom see any here on the Oregon coast. Our lows here are now in the mid 40s. Although inches of rain were predicted for last Friday/Saturday, we only got some rain, not even much hard rain, and Sunday was just that: Sun. Yes, that's one reason I love living here: the weather is pretty much the same year 'round, just generally cooler during Oct-Feb. However, we've had times when you can be out on the beach in December wearing just a light sweater...and times when we're wearing jackets in July. The grass just slows down during winters; I generally don't mow often until about March. During the last 60 years, we've had enough snow to sorta hide the grass three times: due to the extreme cold of 30 degrees or so, pipes burst all over town! Like most older beach houses, ours has little insulation. We don't use our wonderful Earth Stove as much during summers, but now it's comforting to have a fire, at least in the morning.

The other reasons we love living here are all the animals (deer, elk, coyotes, sometimes bears and cougars, birds from our resident great blue heron down to hummers) and that people are genuinely friendly. Everyone smiles and waves. You can meet and get to know someone while standing in the eternally long lines at Safeway (downside of tourism is 50,000 additional people most weekends in this town of 9,000). When there's trouble, like the forest fire just north of town two years ago, everyone pitches in to help.