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Old 07-02-2015, 09:57 PM
 
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The Idaho Division of Tourism Development seems to think there are 7:

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Old 07-02-2015, 10:06 PM
 
Location: Old Mother Idaho
29,184 posts, read 22,196,347 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ShadoAngel View Post
The Idaho Division of Tourism Development seems to think there are 7:
Yup. 25 years ago, the 7 regions all had different names meant to attract tourists. Mine was calle Mountain River Country. I can't remember what the rest were. The all had separate logos as well. Each has its own 4-color brochure and television ads at first. I saw the brochures, but no TV ads; they were all broadcast in metros outside Idaho.

For a short time, every other store called itself Mountain River Something Or Other, and most often used the logo, too. Don't see it much any more.

I wonder if the state is even using the names. I'll have to check the website. The original colors used to distinguish each region are still the same in that map. Each brochure had its own color pallet based on those map colors.
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Old 07-03-2015, 10:34 AM
 
448 posts, read 806,078 times
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Quote:
I wonder if the state is even using the names. I'll have to check the website. The original colors used to distinguish each region are still the same in that map. Each brochure had its own color pallet based on those map colors.
It seems they dropped the names a while ago. It's all directional now:

Northern (Should just be 'north', yes? I rarely hear people refer to Northern Idaho, vs North Idaho)
North Central
Southwestern
Central
South Central
Southeastern
Eastern

I typically think of the state in thirds - East, West, and North but 7 probably markets better.
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Old 07-03-2015, 11:25 AM
 
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I think 7 gets too complicated, and 4 does everything justice - North Idaho, North-Central Idaho, Southern Idaho, Eastern Idaho.

Most people do just think in thirds, though.
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Old 07-03-2015, 12:24 PM
 
Location: Old Mother Idaho
29,184 posts, read 22,196,347 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ShadoAngel View Post
It seems they dropped the names a while ago. It's all directional now:

Northern (Should just be 'north', yes? I rarely hear people refer to Northern Idaho, vs North Idaho)
North Central
Southwestern
Central
South Central
Southeastern
Eastern

I typically think of the state in thirds - East, West, and North but 7 probably markets better.
On the site, the regional names are all consistent. (northern, eastern, western, etc.) I'll bet some citizen noticed and notified.

Yup,

I also agree re/ the marketing. The 7 divisions all have the state's main internal access highways and their junctions and connections. Each region on the map is as loaded with state parks and tourist attractions.

A sad tale follows...
At least a dozen ad agencies, all good ones, have dashed their ships on the state government's rocks trying to promote tourism in the state over the past 30 years.

I worked in the ad business for a while, and it's always the same. There's always some guy from the state tourist board who sees the need for advertising, and often pulls some valuable ideas together as a place to start. He shows his stuff to the board , they all think he's a genius, and give him a couple of grand to get things started. The seed money comes from some of the businesses that could profit from a brochure.

Then the idea man finds a couple of agencies and gives them his rough stuff. 'What can you come up with?' The agency guys rack their brains, go give the area a look-over, talk to the folks, talk to the board, talk to the townsmen, etc. etc., and get some good ideas developed from the state guy's rough.

Then they meet with the Creative Dept. and more brain racking, more work, work, work, sketch, sketch, write, write, until they have a full plan.
Show it to the boss. Boss says 'Too rough. We are selling this to farmers on the board. it has to be closer to the final. They can't envision from this.'
More work. by now, the $1,000 budget is all burned up and the crew has stacked up about $4,000 worth of speculative labor that won't be charged. Project cost for what the board wants is estimated at $6500. Most of the cost is in the printing.

The Boss does his job, presents it. The board discusses all day. Everybody thinks its swell, wonderful, big-time money maker. "We'll call you soon."
Boss comes back and everyone waits. And waits. And waits. And then they get the phone call. "Too much money. Sorry." Everything goes in a file and is stashed forever.

2 months later, a guy from the ad crew notices a brochure someplace. Looks familiar. Yup. It's the agency's work, all clabbered up into a hot mess. Phone call ensues. Chairman of the board says…'Oh, Yeah. You guys had a good idea! I gave it to my daughter-in-law's cousin, who just loves to draw, and he did it for $100 bucks!'

Boss goes home, gets drunk, and thinks about who to go shoot first. Drops the idea in favor of calling the crew over, and they all get knee-walking drunk, then take the next day off. Damp cold fog descends.

Come back the next day, Boss sees the nice lady who owns a dress store they've been doing ads for over the last couple of years. Nothing big.
Nice lady says 'Your ads all worked really well. I've decided to go ahead and put my $4 million development plan into place and built 5 more stores. I want you to be our agency for everything.
I learned there is serious money in this, so I'm growing early to maximize. 10 more stores in 10 more years.' Nice Lady owns it all herself. No state board in the middle.
Boss smiles, gives everyone a raise, and they forget about the losses of the tourist disaster. Agency recovers and moves on.

6 months later, the same crew member spots 20 of the hot mess brochures in a garbage can. All that were ever printed. !/2 a brochure each for the attractions they wanted to feature. None were ever sent.

Total cost to the board: $1500, including 1/20th of the brochures needed to do the job. No new tourists, every motel and restaurant owner who ponyed up the seed money pissed, agency gets all the blame, board fires their idea man, and the daughter-in-law's cousin finds steady work as a professional garbage truck driver.

Fast forward. 3 years later, a new idea man realizes the need for a tourist brochure….
repeat. repeat. repeat. Only the agencies and state idea men change.

The board gets re-elected one more time, and do their best to make sure they keep their $50,000 yr. state board jobs while never doing a single thing. Chairman pushes for a raise for everybody. Governor likes that idea.

That's Idaho for ya.

Last edited by banjomike; 07-03-2015 at 12:38 PM..
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Old 07-05-2015, 07:56 PM
 
Location: Aishalton, GY
1,452 posts, read 1,376,601 times
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Sagle: Just me and my two great grandsons. They'll learn a bit more about living off the land like our ancestors did. Nice being in NID but unless you're logging there really isn't any enterprise of consequence.
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Old 07-07-2015, 04:51 AM
 
Location: Homeless
17,717 posts, read 13,445,178 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DEADTIME View Post
Well here I sit after about 4 years of living in North Idaho. When we moved here my son was in 3rd grade now he's going into 7th in September, how time flys. Before moving here my family and I had lived in many states from Florida to Alaska with a stint in California so we have seen and lived in most regions.

Breaking this down into sections will make it easiest to stay on track and not ramble on (which I've been known to do). These are my opinions which with a quarter might get you a cup of coffee but I'd like to share them. You may or may not agree and that's fine....well really I could care less if you dissagree but hey this is Idaho and it's still a free state so you can have a different opinion (try that in Kalifornia).

1. Livability....a bit hard to define but to me it's how easy it is to live someplace, does the place you live get in your way of being happy. On a scale of one to ten with ten being best I rate North Idaho a nine, why not a ten you ask? We don't have Constitutional carry yet so it's not a ten but hopefully we can fix that in our legislature soon.

It's so wonderfully livable here, I can remember the constant issues I would run into in other states on everything from traffic to dealing with state employee drones it was always a pain in the butt. I can't believe I lived someplace were it took me 2 hours to travel 15 miles every afternoon. The pace of life here allows you to relax, after a short time you feel like you were living in a busy airport before you got here then you walked out the door to a place that the new insane America has forgotten existed and thus hasn't destroyed yet.

Time seems to take on a whole new feeling, things slow down, you breath a bit slower and the outside world just kind of fades into the background noise.

2. Family friendly... Yes..yes...yes...what a great place to raise a family! My son loves it here and the other kids are almost always polite to a fault. There are tons of things to do and far fewer ways to get not trouble or bad situations (although I'm sure I would have found it when I was a teenager). I can remember still being stunned to see kids actually riding their bikes outside or walking home from school......I know crazy right!

You will probably not run into your garden variety thug here unless they have wandered over from Spokane (which I call Spokanistan) no cars filled with scowling Mexican or black gang members (if this offends you then you aren't living in the real world) blaring inappropriate music, no neighborhoods filled with barred windows and doors, and no place you might tell people to not go after it gets dark.

The kids at your child's school will most likely be very nice (there are acception a to the rule but not many) and the teachers my son has worked with have been amazing. My son by the way loves our school lunches here so far we are untouched by Michelle Obamas food crusade and kids actually eat pretty well.

If you get bored here your not trying hard enough to have fun, camping, hunting, fishing, boating, shooting, skiing, off-roading, motorcycling etc etc etc not to mention winter is great for indoor hobbies.

3. Cost of living... Lower than most places I've lived...much lower. We just bought a new to us home near the river, 2800 square feet craftsman style under 200K. My registration tags for my truck was not in the hundreds it was like 40 bucks. Money gos farther here, people aren't in a mad rush to see who can spend the most to impress the neighbors. I always giggle a bit that my old 1971 Dodge Power Wagon gets as much attention here as a Ferrari does in Los Angeles. And no smog checks.....yes boys and girls you can have a hot rod, muscle car, classic truck, this is not a nanny state.

In California I was paying 1,400 dollars a month for a 1 bedroom with a den apartment, here my house payment is 1,038.00 a month. We rented before buying just to get to know the different parts of north Idaho. The highest rent I had was 800.00 a month for a brand new town home close to CDA proper.

My business costs are much lower, the cost of workers comp alone was crushing me in the last state I lived in. I was able to hire 4 new employees and pay them more now that I'm not paying to keep a marxist state afloat.

4. School's... As mentioned earlier really happy with them so far. And Idaho guarantees the right to home school if you wish. Connections academy is a great alternative to regular school and is free in Idaho, my buddy's son has a few issues and attends school daily at home by telecommuting to class.

5. People... The people here are very friendly, both transplants and lifers. The attitude is one of live and let live. People that live here love their personal freedoms and space, people who move here by and large love those thing as well. Don't be a busy body and feel the need to file a complaint to big brother about everything that upsets your little world and you will get along fine. You can be a special little snow flake all you want just don't expect others to kiss your butt.

I've met some of the kindest and friendliest folks here, it's truly been a pleasure getting to know my neighbors and have helped and been helped by others.

6. Freedoms....or the fun things you aren't allowed in other places. To much to list but I'll just throw out a few. I can buy any firearm I choose with no waiting period and no silly bullet button or magazine limit. I can drive anything I choose without meeting any smog regulations.

I can buy real fireworks (the kind that go boom) last year on the 4th 2 of our local policeman came buy to watch us shoot off huge mortars, get some cold drinks (non alchoholic of course) and a few burgers before going on their way.

I can drop my kid and his buddies off at the water park and not worry about his safety and well being.

I can leave my truck running outside the store in the winter to stay warm and it will still be there when I get back.

I bought a large parcel of land where I have my own shooting range...yup I can shoot anytime I want and hunt on it as well as its 25 acres and that's big enough to hunt on.

Final thoughts: My family and I are happy here, safe, comfortable. I owe Idaho a debt of Gratitude I can never payback for giving my family an America that has vanished in so many places. This is where the 80's have come to hide from a country that I find more totalitarian and scary everyday. If you move here to become an Idahoan, to embrace the people, the pace and the environment I suspect you will be as happy as I am.

It's funny, looking back at all the things I've done in my life moving my family here was one of my best choices. And I now consider myself an Idahoan above everything but being a Christian. I hope my silly mental gymnastics exercise here helps someone make a choice to move here. I hope it brings people who want to be from here not just living here.

Thank you for this as one of the states that my wife & I are considering moving to later down the road this has helped us a lot.
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Old 07-18-2015, 03:34 PM
 
204 posts, read 420,422 times
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helpful!! I love this post what an informative look. I visited CDL years ago and when we mentioned to the Realtors showing us around that we wanted to go checkout Sandpoint..they were "oh why? that is SO north" come on it was beautiful!!
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Old 07-18-2015, 05:14 PM
 
Location: Old Mother Idaho
29,184 posts, read 22,196,347 times
Reputation: 23802
North is good! Twilight up here lasts for hours and hours. Sitting out at 9:30 pm enjoying the spectacular sunsets up here is a favorite thing for most of us this time of year. It will stay light for another hour afterward.
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Old 02-03-2019, 10:57 AM
 
2 posts, read 2,685 times
Reputation: 10
Hello ScottStielow,
Thank you for your post on how you like living in North Idaho. My husband and I have lived in many different places as well, and we would like to know how you feel about North Idaho as of 1-2019? We're planning on leaving this State we're in now, (don't want to name it), and move to North Idaho. Is it still as friendly as it was when you wrote your article in 2012? (ie, after living there for 4 years)?
Thanks for any information you can give us.
Silver Dollar
P.S. I can see, after eight years on Zillow, etc., that things are changing in America faster than you can wink.

Last edited by Yac; 11-23-2020 at 05:28 AM..
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