Hi Sequias and Sweetheart,
I lived in Colorado for 2 years before.
Advantages:
-Beautiful scenery mountains. There are two sides in Colorado is mountains and plains.
-Alot of different delicious resturants, mostly mexican and western, and some family styles. One of the most popular resturant in north Denver (I forgot a part of the city) is Bonitas Casa (hope it's correct spelling?). I've been there few times, wonderful sightings inside the big resturant-you could see a performance under a waterfall behind fake cave, even the performance could jump into a water pool. Also, there has some amusement games, walk through hunting fake cave and it would scare you off.
Food menu: Reasonable price and it's like a buffet type.
-Alot of shoppings, there are some big malls in Colorado Springs area (and nearby).
-High education at elementary, Jr. high, and high schools are alot like California's cirrculum.
-A few grocery stores like King Scoop store have a cheap prices.
-Beautiful sunny with very clear sky, usually goes up to 90 tempature.
-Many outdoor activities like climbing, hiking, skiing, rafting, riding horses, walking on trails, camping, resorts, casinos,etc.
-Broncos football stadium, if you're a fan of football sport.
-Six Flags Elitch Gardens, and few other amusement parks. (for your information, Broncos stadium (know as High Mile) across from Six Flags)
Disadvantages:
-Housing costs high, up to $2,000 (or more) to rent or own. Very few housings are a bit cheaper at around $800.00 if they're old version of
buildings.
-Traffic is mostly at rush hours between 3-6 pm or so. Fast speed driving in change lanes (just like California).
-High tax(es) in percent and 5 time take out of your paychecks. No kidding.
-Alot of construction roads in some areas causing delay.
-Unpredictable weather, comes very hot sunny day, and then next few hours later, snowing for a few hours or longer, and then next day, sunny. Rarely rain. Not much of wind. (in south Wymoing, have a strong windy)
-Most companies, even banks have require to check your credit history before open accounts or applications for new customers.
-For deafies events, mostly meetings, lectures, and classes. There is a small events for deafies on social gatherings. I recommend you to contact Ken Davis from Deafnewspaper and ask him to give you the list of deaf events for social. He may have a better suggestions about the deaf events than I do.
Same with ColoradoDeaf.com.
-Some are friendly and some are rude attitudes toward people. Be prepare and be smile.
Mostly western and ordinary clothes. Alot of farmers-precaution, you could smell a mile from farm homesteads-cows..Enjoy the smelling. Ugh...
I have never been to AZ or TX before in my life. Ask resident people.
Sorry.
Have a happy home hunting!