Leaving CA behind. All of it! (Billings, Missoula: to rent, hotel, house)

[Hello MT]

No, Not really, I know its a big state, I like the praries, but also like lower foot hills. Not steep kinda mountains. I dream of the smaller type town, more true horseman/cattle ranchers.
I am in the west side of Lancaster, about 10 miles west of the 14 freeway. The wind blows alot. and the heat is more balmy. More people, houses and green lawns. I've never understood that. Move to the desert and plant a green lawn and expect to keep an oasis. Go figure. only in CA!!!

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by Hello MT

No, Not really, I know its a big state, I like the praries, but also like lower foot hills. Not steep kinda mountains. I dream of the smaller type town, more true horseman/cattle ranchers.
I am in the west side of Lancaster, about 10 miles west of the 14 freeway. The wind blows alot. and the heat is more balmy. More people, houses and green lawns. I've never understood that. Move to the desert and plant a green lawn and expect to keep an oasis. Go figure. only in CA!!!

I like prairie myself. Mountains are fine in the distance, or rough country here and there, but I don't want it cutting off my view of the far horizon. I've discovered this is so important to me, that lack of it is a deal-breaker. I like to see the odd cowboy or two around as well. Reminds me where my dinner came from.

You must be down toward Quartz Hill?? I don't think there are any lawns left up here in Antelope Acres, where water is a lot more expensive (especially since Edison raised summer electric rates by 18%!); this summer has been mild (high temp so far only 103 degrees!) but temperature peaks at 118F and 122F the previous couple summers seems to have killed off the last of the planted grass. There used to be a lot more natural grass out here, too, but it's been going to weeds since we're down to just the one seasonal herd of sheep. Grass evolved to be grazed, and doesn't do well if it's not.

Did you know Ken Swapp, at the feed store on Ave.I and 70th? I think he was about the last of our local cowboys, or close as we had. Last I heard he'd moved to Arizona.

This is pretty funny, that we're almost neighbours here, and someday could be almost neighbours in MT too (I grew up in MT but couldn't make a living there in the 1980s, so moved to CA... now trying to get moved back, since CA has lost its collective mind).

[Hello MT]

Of course I know Ken Swapp. That ol cacker...I used to antaganize that ol fart by telling him how great feeding cubes to horses is...Yes he did go to AZ as some of my roping friends have. Dont care for AZ remindes me too much of what I've already got here, only red dirt.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by Hello MT

Of course I know Ken Swapp. That ol cacker...I used to antaganize that ol fart by telling him how great feeding cubes to horses is...Yes he did go to AZ as some of my roping friends have. Dont care for AZ remindes me too much of what I've already got here, only red dirt.

Haha, yeah I can just hear that argument Ken was a 1948 kind of guy. We had some arguments over how to feed dogs, too.

I'm not a fan of AZ myself (and I hate Phoenix), tho I think the patches of low desert cactus are a sight to behold. Up past Flagstaff is more grassland, but overall AZ is a funny place. In MT, when you have miles and miles of nothing, every so often there'll still be some little waystop with a bar and a gas station. In AZ, there's... nothing. NM is the same way. Texas gets back to having little waystops here and there, more like MT. Might be the heritage of crop farming along with ranching livestock that does it. AZ and NM have never really been big on crops.

[Hello MT]

Ya gotta admit, those catus in AZ are kinda interesting. Standing there like "dont shoot"

[Reziac]

Some of 'em WILL shoot if you get too close... or at least you'll think so as you pick out the spines

[ycatapom]

Now don't get me wrong, but what do most of you people really know about California, not just where most of the people live. I live in North California, part of an area that is called The State of Jefferson, which has been trying to disassociate with the south for over 100 yrs. My well logged over corrnor is has over 2 million ac. and maybe 500 people. Trinity Country would fit well in Montana, the third largest country in the state, 14 thousand people and the poorest in the state. Try Modoc County, wind always blows and 0 is a high. For many " Californians" a move to Montana climate would be no biggie.

Now that said, I to am looking to move, but I want to get away from The California attitude. Those people who must change everything because the know or thats not how we did it, fill in southren calif place. Where problems can still be solved by local people with local knowlage, not a bureaucrat from place down a interstate. So Montana is at the top of my list, I like water trees amd snow, but not wind. Wife and I have a show at Hamilton this June and a nephew in Kalispel. Thus I plan to spend a few weeks this summer in Westren Montana.

[oldtrader]

If you don't like wind, don't come to Montana. We have a tremendous amount of it.

[Timberwolf232]

Originally Posted by ycatapom

Now don't get me wrong, but what do most of you people really know about California, not just where most of the people live. I live in North California, part of an area that is called The State of Jefferson, which has been trying to disassociate with the south for over 100 yrs. My well logged over corrnor is has over 2 million ac. and maybe 500 people. Trinity Country would fit well in Montana, the third largest country in the state, 14 thousand people and the poorest in the state. Try Modoc County, wind always blows and 0 is a high. For many " Californians" a move to Montana climate would be no biggie.

Now that said, I to am looking to move, but I want to get away from The California attitude. Those people who must change everything because the know or thats not how we did it, fill in southren calif place. Where problems can still be solved by local people with local knowlage, not a bureaucrat from place down a interstate. So Montana is at the top of my list, I like water trees amd snow, but not wind. Wife and I have a show at Hamilton this June and a nephew in Kalispel. Thus I plan to spend a few weeks this summer in Westren Montana.

It's that "California Attitude" that we know here in the Rocky Mountain West all too well.. I watched it destroy Colorado, when the town I grew up part time in went from a population of about 300, when I was a kid, to around 25,000 by the time I graduated HS, and is over 65,000 now. (over 200K in the county!, this was farm and ranch land!!) I couldn't afford to go back there and have a prayer at buying property if I made 6 figures. Californians bought up all the land, build gigantic, wasteful mansions and vacation homes, pricing out the working people that just want to work and live.

That is how I got my bitterness towards Californians, I grew up part time here as well, and to see all the California plates rolling through here in recent years really concerns me. We don't need any of the "Me first, get mine, instant gratification, screw everyone else" types up this way. Thank God for cold winters and wind.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by Timberwolf232

It's that "California Attitude" that we know here in the Rocky Mountain West all too well.. I watched it destroy Colorado, when the town I grew up part time in went from a population of about 300, when I was a kid, to around 25,000 by the time I graduated HS, and is over 65,000 now. (over 200K in the county!, this was farm and ranch land!!)

Gods on stilts... what town was that?

And hey, folks, what do we eat once we've paved over all the best farmland? Because THAT is what's being made into urban sprawl and subdivisions and McMansions. About 30 years ago, a study on the topic concluded that about 25% of the best producing farmland across the U.S. was already paved over and gone forever. I imagine that number is quite a bit worse by now... in the Gallatin Valley it looks to me like it's around half already.