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Compared to the rest of Idaho, Boise is far left (as is the Wood River Valley). The city government is Democratic and the city generally is opposite of the politics in the rest of the state including Idaho Falls.
Regarding Boise, Hillary Clinton won most of the cities precincts during the last presidential election. Boise is not extreme like Portland or Seattle but it also is not as conservative as many people might assume.
Sure, but it's fairly moderate for a city. Ada Country still goes red and (don't laugh) Boise is pretty fiscally conservative and pro business in general.
It's fairly moderate. The city is center left and the country is center right. It isn't a perfect comparison, but Ada is "most similar" politically to the city of Fort Worth in the Metroplex.
My point was/is that Boise isn't as conservative as many who are not familiar with Boise may think.
And, I live in Boise (have for many years) and am aware of the political personality of the city and county.
Point taken. It also isn't as liberal as some folks in Idaho seem to think it is. I tend to think the city is only mildly socially liberal. City Hall began flying the Rainbow flag about 10 years ago when I was in Highschool which was before gay marriage was nationally legal but not exactly on the cutting liberal edge.
Point taken. It also isn't as liberal as some folks in Idaho seem to think it is. I tend to think the city is only mildly socially liberal. City Hall began flying the Rainbow flag about 10 years ago when I was in Highschool which was before gay marriage was nationally legal but not exactly on the cutting liberal edge.
Boise is probably uber liberal to someone who lives in a small rural Idaho town. People I work with who relocated here from out of state are surprised at how open and relatively liberal Boise is and that is one of the aspects that attracted them here when they were researching relocations/jobs, plus the fact that it is not as far crazy left as a Portland or Seattle but not as crazy right as they may have assumed.
I like to think of Boise as a city that is comfortably level headed, not too far (extreme) left or right but more as you described it as "center left "
Boise has changed a lot since I moved here, it feels and looks and acts like a bigger city. Referring to the flags, it is also common to see gay and lesbian couples holding hands walking around downtown. One of the most visible and busy night clubs downtown is a gay bar on 8th Street. I think that would be a culture shock for someone visiting from Preston or Bonners Ferry.
Last edited by Syringaloid; 04-02-2018 at 01:22 PM..
Reason: typo
Boise has a few far lefterners (I know it's not a word), but as a whole, probably more conservative than the metroplex you call home.
I would probably agree with the last bit as California has polluted our political landscape in every major city larger than 150k people with exception of Ft. Worth.
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The snow almost never shuts down the region like it would in Texas. Unless you live on a ranch in the mountains you will likely not get snowed in.
Great to know. I figured as much with the snow+mountains thing, since you know, common sense.
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You can drill your own well.
Don't mind paying someone to do it, just was curious how deep the water table is in some of those areas we're thinking of.
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The job market in pretty much all of idaho is healthy. Wages are low compared to everywhere but cost of living offsets that.
Both of us have extensive corporate office and marketing/market research experience but do not necessarily want to do that if we don't have to. She has the degrees where I have the jack-of-all-trades experience. My wife can also teach. We would also be interested in what industries/companies have remote jobs as well. Ideally pretty much anything that pays the salaries I mentioned in my first post we'd be open to and as a bonus it will be quite a bit less stress than this marketing/market research gig we have right now.
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How you might define certain things such as rural or isolated may differ greatly from Idahoans. That said I fully agree that a trip out here is how you're going to find what you're looking for. Good luck
For myself I've lived in rural Texas where we only had one school with less than 50 students K-12. My wife hasn't really been in a rural setting. A sparsely populated setting but not true rural. But seeing as we keep to ourselves that most likely won't be a problem.
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Originally Posted by Treasurevalley92
To add to this, and directed at the OP:
If you have only lived in DFW, idk if I would recommend moving to a smaller town in Idaho right off the bat. Boise itself will seem pretty small to you, the city of Boise is about the size of the suburb of Irving. DFW is massive.
DFW is quite massive indeed. Most people who haven't visited or lived here do not know just how massive. Other than LA or NYC its probably #3 on that list on both population and land size--well its either #3 or #4 on the list anyway as the most populous metro area either tied with or just behind the Chicago area. Its also #4 on GDP. But on to the content of your comment, we do plan on renting an apartment either in Boise, Idaho Falls/Pocatello and or maybe in Twin Falls for 6-12 months or so before moving. That is unless we locate land with a cabin already on it then we can stay in while building our main house so in that situation we'd likely take the plunge and go that route.
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You would likely get most of the small town experience you want out of Idaho Falls, or Nampa or any of the other non Boise "Large" Idaho Cities. They are all under 100k.
If you moved to a smaller town you could end up being "those Texas people from Dallas who moved here and overpaid for a bunch of land"
IDK id personally rather put down some roots first.
I understand where you're coming from and agree to a certain extent. This isn't a rush decision and we aren't dumb so I doubt we'll be; "those Texas people from Dallas who moved here and overpaid for a bunch of land". But even if we were "those" people, money isn't really a big deal to us (as in it doesn't indicate any sort of happiness) so even if we paid a premium for some land I consider it a necessary investment because frankly it ****ing sucks here in Texas and the geology is putrid so if we have to overpay to see mountains then so be it. All kidding aside on that last bit, we are ok with paying a premium because at the end of the day "overpaying" up there in ID for land with a mountain view will still be tens of thousands of $$$ less than buying boring-ass property down here in the sweaty arm-pit of the country with no elevation what-so-ever.
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You might move to one of these cities and then explore for land once you live here. You might find that is remote enough for you. Idaho remote is a different level than Texas, yeah even middle of nowhere Texas.
See my reply above, had planned on renting an apartment first. The weekends will be spend roaming around the state experiencing what it has to offer and scouting out the destination.
Keep this good stuff coming, it is invaluable. I'm doing some preliminary planning on a road trip up there so do you all think we should drive to Boise first then head east down I86 to Idaho Falls/Pocatello or the other way around? I'm thinking Boise first which will make it easier to stop through Yellowstone on the way home than the other way around. Gotta take the wife east to Myrtle Beach first but the next road trip is up to ID with a stop in WY on the way back.
Drilling a well is problematic here, because there's no given depth of the water table. It would be more accurate to call them water tables, as in one spot, good water can be found at 60 feet, while a quarter-mile away, it could be 400 feet.
Idaho's water tables are pretty unique; the south had a lot of vulcanism, and the north was glacial in the last ice age, but not the south.
The lava rock under the entire south end of the state has and enormous aquifer the size of Lake Erie, but the water constantly flows through it. In some spots it percolates up closer to the surface, in others it goes deep, and the Lost River actually all goes underground at one point, to emerge flowing out of the side of the Snake River canyon about 100 miles away at 10,000 Springs.
In the north, the glaciers and the many earhquakes- Idaho is an earthquake zone, too- causes similar odd flows in the water tables. The subsurface rocks are different there, and carry water in many different ways.
The first water is not always the best water, either. Sometimes a well will hit a shallow pocket first, and the water looks good, but the pocket will dry out in regular use. The good water can be far down from it.
Other times, a shallow well can taste rusty or nasty, but is safe to drink. Sweet water might be very shallow or might be very deep. You never know until the hole is drilled.
In the north, water must be tested for heavy metal contamination; the mines in the mining district brought up a lot of arsenic and other heavy metals that all ended up in the water table because the heavy metals always sink to the lowest spots. Lake Coeur d'Alene's bottom is heavily contaminated, as are some others.
There's also radon, which can be found all over the state. Drilling a well can poke through a radon deposit and cause the radon to enter the home, so it must be tested for too.
On the other side of it, there's a farm in St. Anthony that has a spring on it that was only used for livestock watering for over 100 years, but the water was so sweet the neighbors would come over to get some of it just to use on special occasions.
The owner's grandson finally realized the water had some real value, capped the spring and now sells bottled water from it. The water is very pure, and very sweet- it's quite soft, but has just enough minerals in it to taste good. The water makes the family a lot more money than the livestock ever did.
That's Idaho. The less you expect, the more you will discover. The more you expect, the less you will find.
Hello all. Sorry this is a long winded post, they usually end up that way from me. And this is slightly different from my Utah post.
My wife and I will be looking to get out of Texas (couldn't be fast enough for me) and move to one of three states we like out west to be closer to her family in CA and to experience something Texas only has in 1 small place (Alpine), mountains and natural beauty (aka elevation). Below are some details about us and what we're looking for along with some concerns so any help is appreciated to determine what area will be the best place for us to look at and consider. Thank you in advance!
Details:
-We are both in our 30's, though when we end up relocating I'll be right at or just over 40
-Wife is conservative leaning libertarian and I am libertarian (we both do not want to be around the far-left so Boise is likely out? please confirm!) North Idaho would be better in that regard; southern Idaho is more of a mix of new progressive, old-school Blue Dog democrat, social conservative religious, and establishment Republican. More religious to the east, more progressive to the west.
-We are very much pro 2nd amendment people (we're from Texas, duh ) That's fine here.
-We like to be left alone and do our own thing not bothering anyone and we are not judgemental So says everyone until they find themselves in some dispute. I deal with it on a daily basis. The "leave us and let us be" types are typically the first to sue, or complain to the city/county about this or that. I think you'll find it's entirely dependent on the person, and not their ideological outlook.
-We won't need to have high paying jobs as our current house equity will wipe out **all** of our debt and a good chunk of the next mortgage so we only need to each make a minimum of $30-35k per year or one of us at least $45k--which is peanuts compared to what we make now Famous last words. Life costs here like it costs anywhere else. You'll still need to pay the bills, Uncle Sam, save for retirement, do repairs and maintenance, etc. Hard to do on $35k per year, even if you have the mortgage paid off. With cold and winter weather, you'll find more unexpected expenses there than you would coming from warmer, drier climates.
-Want as much land as we can get a hold of in our budget and be at most an hour and 15-20 mins for a commute to work This is highly situational. But commuting in Idaho is a vast difference than commuting in Texas. Towns are farther apart, distances between places are greater, and the roads are slick and icy 3-4 months a year. That said, depending on where you go and what sort of work you do, this request is either implausible, or highly plausible. Do you really want to drive an hour to work on a daily basis? That's 2 hours of your day, 10 hours of your week, that's shot. Moreover, every time you need to run to town for shopping, hardware, dining, or whatever... keep tacking on the time.
There is a significant lifestyle difference between living in or close to an Idaho "city" - be it CDA, Lewiston, Nampa, Boise, Twin Falls, Pocatello, or Idaho Falls, and living in or around a small town. Both are possible; but each offers a completely different lifestyle. I think it's getting increasingly more difficult to live in a smaller town in the West, and that is why most small western towns are dying - no work and too far to drive for work, no services, none of the modern day amenities people need now that maybe they didn't 30 or 50 years ago.
I have friends and family that live all over the state - Salmon, Rupert, Buhl, Riggins, Grangeville, Carey... it's hard to live in some of these places without giving up a lot of opportunities.
Meanwhile, my sister in law is from the Northeast, and she said small towns in the east are growing because of people fleeing the cities. But everything just kind of runs into each other and there's no real distinction between town and country. Not so here in Idaho.
-We want to be able to shoot firearms on our own property (target shooting mostly) Possible if you live in the country; not so if you live in town.
-Looking to build a steel house and go off-grid (solar and wind, mostly solar) That would mean you'd have to be in southern Idaho; not enough sun or wind up north. I have friends who work in solar installations and its still a bit difficult here to go completely off grid.
-Anything from the Rexburg area, down to Idaho Falls, Pocatello, and even down by Downey based on the land prices, proximity to larger cities for perspective employment and the geology we are looking for--would consider the south/south western side of the state as well (Twin Falls, Mountain Home, Emmett, etc) A lot of difference here... you'd just have to come out and visit to see.
Concerns:
-Finding employment that pays a reasonable wage--not expecting or looking for high salaries just something reasonable Yup. You'll probably have to be close to IF, TF, or Boise here. Even those places struggle to pay a reasonable wage.
-Variety of jobs to choose from for the aforementioned wage above Even more so you'll need to be near IF or Boise... even TF suffers from a diverse job market.
-Since we want a ton of acreage my concern is how far out is too far out to drive to work/town in case of inclement weather?
You're going to have a really, really hard time finding "a ton of acreage" near enough to Boise, TF, or IF/Pocatello to reliably drive into work on a daily basis. You'll maybe find an acre, maybe 2 acres... but that's hardly a ton. If you're talking 10 or more acres within daily driving distance to a town with a decent job market, good luck. Twin Falls would be your best bet, and even that will prove hard to find. My stepfather lives outside of TF on 3 acres that he bought 15 years ago. Problem is, most land in Southern Idaho is either farmland that is being farmed or isn't any good (volcanic, basalt bedrock, toxic, or no well potential). Everything else is likely already being subdivided and developed.
Specific to your question, I wouldn't want to spend more than 30 minutes driving on icy roads. The distance is highly variable depending on traffic flow. I do know some people who drive from Mountain Home to Boise on the freeway of death, or from Rupert to Twin Falls (equally sketch). Remember, southern Idaho has high winds, you'll get a lot of drifting and freezing of the highways and freeways, at least in December, Jan, and some of Feb.
-And on that subject of weather, how often does heavily snow where you cannot get out to go to work? Very rarely. Last year we had a few weeks in Boise where that was the case, but it's very rare.
-Enough nice places to eat and shopping in Pocatello/Idaho Falls/Twin Falls/etc? It's okay. Typical chain fare or generic Americana. Each place will have a few nice, boutique options. Nothing like what you'd find in a large city.
-Cost of living (food, gasoline, cell service, internet/cable, propane, etc)? Food is average, gas is much higher, cell service is spotty (Verizon is the best), internet/cable is hit and miss - lucky to get 40mbps in a cities. I'm capped at 20 in Boise, and my family barely gets 1mbps in some of the rural places they live.
-How far down is the water table in these areas to drill in to for water? Highly dependent. Look at the Idaho Dept. of Water Resources website.
-Does Idaho allow you to capture water on your own property (for watering the lawn/trees) or are they like Wyoming and pretty much outlaw that practice? I think so, but not sure.
We love small towns but are not sure if they would provide much in the way of available and stable jobs. But that's where you all come in. Anywhere we are missing to look at? We're open to just about anywhere in or south of Emmett, Fairfield, Mackay, Dubois, or Ashton all the way to the southern border.
I simply wouldn't count on any stable, decent paying jobs in any town smaller than 20,000 people unless that town is in proximity to a larger city (and even then you're likely going to commute to that city). The sorts of jobs you'd find in places like Ashton, Fairfield, Dubois, etc., are either jobs you make on your own (plying your own trade), market clerking, school district, farming/ranching, or general handyman. There is also the issue that in most small towns, everyone already knows each other, so you're facing an uphill battle both when it comes to hiring or patronizing.
Again, there's a reason small towns in Idaho are small, and the population is either decreasing or barely holding steady. It's not like these places are some undiscovered secret. They just don't have sustainable economies. Those small towns that are growing are either suburbs in a metro area (Emmett, Eagle, Kuna) or resorts (Driggs, Victor).
The other two states are Utah and Montana. I like cold weather (can withstand/tolerate some decently cold stuff) and my wife can only loosely tolerate it so Montana is probably option #3 followed by Wyoming as a wild card for #4 based on that alone. We want to have mountains visible from our property which we don't get here in Texas and to be able to live our lives privately.
Well, you're probably not going to get mountain views in acreage that is affordable, at least in Idaho. Especially when you're gunning for country acreage with mountain views close to somewhere that provides stable jobs. I don't know, maybe Cascade or Carey or Hazelton. Maybe try Wilderness Ranch near Boise?
This will be the last place we go, we will retire here. Why?
See in bold, above. I tried to be as honest and direct as I could be.
Drilling a well is problematic here, because there's no given depth of the water table. It would be more accurate to call them water tables, as in one spot, good water can be found at 60 feet, while a quarter-mile away, it could be 400 feet.
Idaho's water tables are pretty unique; the south had a lot of vulcanism, and the north was glacial in the last ice age, but not the south.
The lava rock under the entire south end of the state has and enormous aquifer the size of Lake Erie, but the water constantly flows through it. In some spots it percolates up closer to the surface, in others it goes deep, and the Lost River actually all goes underground at one point, to emerge flowing out of the side of the Snake River canyon about 100 miles away at 10,000 Springs.
In the north, the glaciers and the many earhquakes- Idaho is an earthquake zone, too- causes similar odd flows in the water tables. The subsurface rocks are different there, and carry water in many different ways.
The first water is not always the best water, either. Sometimes a well will hit a shallow pocket first, and the water looks good, but the pocket will dry out in regular use. The good water can be far down from it.
Other times, a shallow well can taste rusty or nasty, but is safe to drink. Sweet water might be very shallow or might be very deep. You never know until the hole is drilled.
In the north, water must be tested for heavy metal contamination; the mines in the mining district brought up a lot of arsenic and other heavy metals that all ended up in the water table because the heavy metals always sink to the lowest spots. Lake Coeur d'Alene's bottom is heavily contaminated, as are some others.
There's also radon, which can be found all over the state. Drilling a well can poke through a radon deposit and cause the radon to enter the home, so it must be tested for too.
On the other side of it, there's a farm in St. Anthony that has a spring on it that was only used for livestock watering for over 100 years, but the water was so sweet the neighbors would come over to get some of it just to use on special occasions.
The owner's grandson finally realized the water had some real value, capped the spring and now sells bottled water from it. The water is very pure, and very sweet- it's quite soft, but has just enough minerals in it to taste good. The water makes the family a lot more money than the livestock ever did.
That's Idaho. The less you expect, the more you will discover. The more you expect, the less you will find.
That's some good info thank you. I read about the radon a little while back but not about that variation in the water table(s) and about the metals/toxins. Is it worth it to consider a cistern and haul water or drill and pray? Also, believe it or not we get earthquakes here ranging from 2.0 to just under 4.0 due to all of the fracking here.
What's the name of that bottled water? I'm curious about that and might try to get some.
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Originally Posted by FishingParadise
North Idaho would be better in that regard; southern Idaho is more of a mix of new progressive, old-school Blue Dog democrat, social conservative religious, and establishment Republican. More religious to the east, more progressive to the west.
Then the middle of the state it is!!! In all seriousness, like I said we keep to ourselves and don’t talk about religion or politics so I think we’ll be fine in any of those areas. Thanks for the comments, I’ll go point by point.
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That's fine here.
Good.
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So says everyone until they find themselves in some dispute. I deal with it on a daily basis. The "leave us and let us be" types are typically the first to sue, or complain to the city/county about this or that. I think you'll find it's entirely dependent on the person, and not their ideological outlook.
You’re definitely correct with the part about that being person to person dependent. We are quiet and aren’t the complaining or suing type so no worries there. Trust me, anything is better than we were are now and where we came from before this house.
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Famous last words. Life costs here like it costs anywhere else. You'll still need to pay the bills, Uncle Sam, save for retirement, do repairs and maintenance, etc. Hard to do on $35k per year, even if you have the mortgage paid off. With cold and winter weather, you'll find more unexpected expenses there than you would coming from warmer, drier climates.
We’ve got (and will have) plenty of money saved up and with how low our monthly responsibilities will be (zero revolving debt minus a small mortgage) I don’t think this is much of a concern as it would be with most people. Yes **** happens, and it happens everywhere, so that’s why we actively participate in what preparation we can. Both of our potential salaries will be way far and away to enough to continue saving a good deal of $$$. We are savers and not spenders. Let’s say we both make ~$40k each after taking out federal and state taxes and such we will still have almost or right at double what we would have for our bills/living expenses per month. And even if my calculations are off it still will be a considerable amount of money going in to savings and investments. No one's every fully prepared, but having the right mindset and tools at your disposal can significantly increase your odds. The salary thing is a wild card for sure, but rest assured, we aren't going in to this blind and dumb. That's where the apartment renting comes in to play when the first of us finds a job up there. We can stay at the apt until we get in to a good situation if needed. The side effect to that is omg mountains and better weather.
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This is highly situational. But commuting in Idaho is a vast difference than commuting in Texas. Towns are farther apart, distances between places are greater, and the roads are slick and icy 3-4 months a year. That said, depending on where you go and what sort of work you do, this request is either implausible, or highly plausible. Do you really want to drive an hour to work on a daily basis? That's 2 hours of your day, 10 hours of your week, that's shot. Moreover, every time you need to run to town for shopping, hardware, dining, or whatever... keep tacking on the time.
Personally I don’t mind a long commute and neither does my wife (though I can take it a bit easier), and we already sit for an hour or more where we are now. I’d rather be moving for ~1 hour driving 40-60 miles that sitting in traffic ~1 hour just to go 22 miles. I’ve also lived pretty far out of town in a very rural area so driving a bit to get to a store/etc isn’t new to me. Hell, when we first moved to this house we are in how we had to drive at least 15-20 miles just to get to a store. Now its like 5~8 minutes, but for years we had to make a nice drive just to get groceries.
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There is a significant lifestyle difference between living in or close to an Idaho "city" - be it CDA, Lewiston, Nampa, Boise, Twin Falls, Pocatello, or Idaho Falls, and living in or around a small town. Both are possible; but each offers a completely different lifestyle. I think it's getting increasingly more difficult to live in a smaller town in the West, and that is why most small western towns are dying - no work and too far to drive for work, no services, none of the modern day amenities people need now that maybe they didn't 30 or 50 years ago.
Now this is an important point I hadn’t considered about the small towns dying, but it makes sense. And not surprising to hear about the lifestyle difference. Can you elaborate on anything specific?
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I have friends and family that live all over the state - Salmon, Rupert, Buhl, Riggins, Grangeville, Carey... it's hard to live in some of these places without giving up a lot of opportunities.
Any by opportunities do you mean jobs or “amenities” or something else? The former does matter a considerable amount more than the latter.
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That would mean you'd have to be in southern Idaho; not enough sun or wind up north. I have friends who work in solar installations and its still a bit difficult here to go completely off grid.
Now I don’t yet have experience with solar systems but from what I’ve read the energy storage (solar batteries) are the most important part of the system and with the right amount of batteries you shouldn’t have much of a problem going off-grid if you receive 4~5 hours of sunlight per day on average. Is that correct? The solar number for these areas isn’t bad so it should get enough sunlight to be good. Plus, there’s always the backup generator(s) we’ll have as well if we need something in a pinch. Did I miss anything and or is there another variable I'm missing?
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A lot of difference here... you'd just have to come out and visit to see.
We plan on it. We cannot wait to see ID, WY, and MT.
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Yup. You'll probably have to be close to IF, TF, or Boise here. Even those places struggle to pay a reasonable wage.
We are going in to this knowing we should be within a comfortable (for us) distance to one of these larger populated areas. Also, what do you consider a “reasonable wage”? Perhaps each person has a different idea of what they would consider is a “reasonable wage”.
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Even more so you'll need to be near IF or Boise... even TF suffers from a diverse job market.
At least one of us (if not both) will be getting employment before we move to whatever the destination is so that will cover at least part of that equation. Perhaps if one of us finds a decent enough job it would make the transition a little easier. There’s always a possibility of finding a remote job. Hell, I’m going to see if our company we work for now (we work at same place doing almost the same job lol) will allow us to do so since we already have remote co-workers in the Yakima and Spokane area. Yes, we’d need to be in an area with more than 1Mbps internet speed so that would be a consideration as well.
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You're going to have a really, really hard time finding "a ton of acreage" near enough to Boise, TF, or IF/Pocatello to reliably drive into work on a daily basis. You'll maybe find an acre, maybe 2 acres... but that's hardly a ton. If you're talking 10 or more acres within daily driving distance to a town with a decent job market, good luck. Twin Falls would be your best bet, and even that will prove hard to find. My stepfather lives outside of TF on 3 acres that he bought 15 years ago. Problem is, most land in Southern Idaho is either farmland that is being farmed or isn't any good (volcanic, basalt bedrock, toxic, or no well potential). Everything else is likely already being subdivided and developed.
Finding lot sizes that interest us isn’t difficult actually. But as you mention about the quality of the land and gainful employment matters and that’s one of the reasons I decided to post here among other places to get this sort of detail from actual people’s experience or their acquaintances experiences.
For example, here are three such lots as an example of what we would be looking for. Obviously this is a variable that cannot be predicted but it gives you an idea of what we’d be most interested in.
Specific to your question, I wouldn't want to spend more than 30 minutes driving on icy roads. The distance is highly variable depending on traffic flow. I do know some people who drive from Mountain Home to Boise on the freeway of death, or from Rupert to Twin Falls (equally sketch). Remember, southern Idaho has high winds, you'll get a lot of drifting and freezing of the highways and freeways, at least in December, Jan, and some of Feb.
Believe it or not we get that ice stuff in North Texas pretty frequently--especially with how many bridges, overpasses and such we have on top of our high winds. The only differences are it isn’t an everyday thing and for some stupid reason everything shuts down and people forget how to drive in it. Haha. and we are very windy here, something else people from other parts of the country aren't aware of until they live here. Dallas should be named the windy city because Chicago has nothing on our wind here.
Also, freeway of death? Do explain please.
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Very rarely. Last year we had a few weeks in Boise where that was the case, but it's very rare.
I’ve heard this from several people so good to see this is a consistent data point.
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It's okay. Typical chain fare or generic Americana. Each place will have a few nice, boutique options. Nothing like what you'd find in a large city.
Chain fare is good enough for pretty much everything. I’m sure we’d be close enough to a nice restaurant we can occasionally make a trip to. This is probably the least concern we have.
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Food is average, gas is much higher, cell service is spotty (Verizon is the best), internet/cable is hit and miss - lucky to get 40mbps in a cities. I'm capped at 20 in Boise, and my family barely gets 1mbps in some of the rural places they live.
Your food is likely cheaper there than ours is here FYI. Cell service, yea that’s going to be a rough point. We have Sprint and I get that we’d probably need to switch to whatever has the best coverage. Don’t ask me how much fun our Sprint was when we went to Alaska in 2016 (Denali for the win!). Hint: it sucked.
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I simply wouldn't count on any stable, decent paying jobs in any town smaller than 20,000 people unless that town is in proximity to a larger city (and even then you're likely going to commute to that city).
This is sort of my thinking as well.
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The sorts of jobs you'd find in places like Ashton, Fairfield, Dubois, etc., are either jobs you make on your own (plying your own trade), market clerking, school district, farming/ranching, or general handyman. There is also the issue that in most small towns, everyone already knows each other, so you're facing an uphill battle both when it comes to hiring or patronizing.
That is entirely true for just about anywhere it seems, even here in TX. Other than my wife teaching there are a lot of other jobs we’d qualify for so I have no doubt there would be something, but, like you said it would need to be in a city with at least some population. More than anything this is the most unpredictable variable, but, this is true no matter where you go and we ARE going somewhere else because this is a ****-hole part of the country we are in and my wife wants to be closer to her family in CA.
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Well, you're probably not going to get mountain views in acreage that is affordable, at least in Idaho. Especially when you're gunning for country acreage with mountain views close to somewhere that provides stable jobs. I don't know, maybe Cascade or Carey or Hazelton. Maybe try Wilderness Ranch near Boise?
*see Zillow links above. Doesn’t seem too difficult to locate very reasonably priced land with some views close enough to a decent sized town for a commute. I'll keep those other places in mind you listed here, thank you.
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Why?
Because we want to plant ourselves somewhere nice + establish roots there and have a legacy for our kid(s) when we have them. That and we’re going to retire early and don’t want to move again if we don't have to...and if the mortgage/property is paid for and we have zero revolving bills why move again and incur more debt?
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All kidding aside on that last bit, we are ok with paying a premium because at the end of the day "overpaying" up there in ID for land with a mountain view will still be tens of thousands of $$$ less than buying boring-ass property down here in the sweaty arm-pit of the country with no elevation what-so-ever.
I’ve also lived pretty far out of town in a very rural area so driving a bit to get to a store/etc isn’t new to me. 
Hint: it sucked. 
