Happy Birthday Arizona!

Today is a lot of things...

Valentines Day (hope you bought your honey a card!)  The SandCastle Queen commanded "only a card" this year as she has already procured an epic "family valentine gift".
Starbucks Buycott
Arizona's Birthday.

Not just any birthday, our Centennial.  Today she turns 100.
Arizona was the last continental territory US to become a state.  Only Alaska and Hawaii followed into the union.  (so far, but we have a long ways to go to get to 57 states).

Arizona is an interesting state.   Most people here are from somewhere else.  We have a lot of "snowbirds" here.  A while back RNS linked a slide show extolling the virtues of Wa State. Hey great, but we sure see an awful lot of Washington state plates round these parts this time of year.  Why is that?  And why are they trying to turn left from the high speed lane instead of the provided left turn lane?

The SandCastle Queen is a rarity:  A native, born and raised here.  She has personally seen more than half the life of the state.

I'm not a native but I'm an Arizonan by choice!  I was born and raised elsewhere, but purposefully chose to live here.   I used to visit the parental units in the Peoples Republic of Kalifornia the week between Christmas and New Years.  The papers were always full of "new laws enacted this year and taking effect on 1/1/xxxx"  After about three days of this I'd just get mad and yearn for my free state of Arizona.  Crossing the Colorado river I'd always let out a yell to celebrate my return to freedom.  Alpha Mike Foxtrot Kalifornia.

Arizona is not a perfect state.  Far from it, We have a big illegal immigrant problem and a budget problem as big as any other state (proportionally), but it's one of the best from the personal freedom standpoint. Arizona has constitutional carry.


Happy Birthday Arizona!
I'm glad to be here!