Bravo! Good for you! I'm in the same boat. Instrument rating 3 years ago, and
only 5 or so hours of actual. As you said, here in Arizona, it's either
thunderstorms or icing. Not to mention the MEAs of 13000 make it a pain to go
IFR. I've filed a few times just for practice, but all the restricted
airspace and the high MEAs make it hardly worth the trouble.

Mike