Considering moving to Idaho, looking for suggestions on where to live

[SCGranny]

My brother lives in "the toe of the boot", the southeastern part of Idaho, in Soda Springs. Soda looks like a tiny town but has a population of 5000... with 4 LDS churches. It is very 'walkable' but most folks don't care to walk it. We walked it a lot when we were there, and folks were always stopping to see if we wanted a ride 'home'. We went to a bar on Christmas Eve during a blizzard and the patrons in the bar offered us rides back to our motel! (I don't stay with family when I go places, always in a motel - for their privacy and my own.) We stayed at the Caribou Lodge - the first time in one of the outbuildings, where even forced-steam heat left ice on the inside of the windows, and extra blankets were a must. The next time we stayed in the interior building, which was warmer. Every AM I would put on my robe and Eeyore slippers, go to the lobby with the huge fireplace, drink coffee and read the paper, and chat with the owner/operator and whomever came in. Very quaint and mellow area. Heavily - and I mean HEAVILY - Republican. But friendly and warm to folks they didn't know.

My brother told me of a HS history class they had where the books taught what was considered liberal untruths instead of history. So they ripped the pages out and taught what they knew to be true. You may actually prefer their schools to homeschooling if you feel the same way. The kids in town all went to see the Harry Potter movie - it was packed, so much so that larger kids invited smaller kids to share their seats, and there were kids seated on the floor.

As for crime, the town residents have a pager system - when a crime is committed and a subject flees, their pagers go off. They stop what they are doing, grab their guns, and line up on the roads going out of town. No one passes. They stopped a bank robber (poor fool was just passing thru, and thought that this friendly little town was an easy hit) and there has been very little crime in their town other than the usual domestic stuff. Even the drunks at the bar were friendly. In the winter, most folks leave their cars running in the parking lot at the store, to not only keep the interior warm, but to keep the engine hot. However, in the summer, one must keep one's car doors locked, as you may come out to find a bag of someone's surplus tomatoes, zucchini, etc in the back seat!

We went to Lava Hot Springs on our journeys, which is a great natural mineral hot spring. Wonderful after a long day of skiing.

My brother showed me places where the "Reformed" LDS church had their homes; they believe in polygamy and keep to themselves. The town of Malad is basically polygamists - only problem was that, while we were passing thru on the interstate, the whole town was quarantined due to the flu epidemic. Sometimes too much familiarity breeds more than contempt!

Pocatello has been, in my brother's words, "overrun with bedwetting liberals". It is a nice place to visit, but not as clean or as friendly as other places in the State.

My brother hunts the Federal properties around his house; deer, elk, and turkey are abundant and not bad eatin'. He has farmer friends who call him when the deer are in their fields - they practically overrun them at times, sometimes 40 or more head. However, when he was out one time in the snow, he backtracked and found where a cougar was hunting HIM. A cougar passes through their town every so often, and she doesn't get too close to the houses - but any stray cats or other animals are fair game to her. (They assume she is a female because of her cyclical hunting patterns.)

Most of the people in Soda are employed at the mine there. I forget the mineral, but it is extracted by heating the rock to high temps. Watching the dump trucks pour the white-hot sludge down their 'tail hill' is a sight not to be missed. The restaurant food is excellent; the bakery has wonderful surprises, the meat is superb - for a small town, they have excellent fare and good services of all types. Their car wash has HOT water; this helps get the salted frozen slushballs off of the bottoms of the cars.

The skiing is great, the gardening - not so much. My brother last year had those hanging bags of tomatoes, and had to bring them in at night, even in May, because of snows and freezing temps.

We were going to buy and move there but the prices were 'way to high for what we wanted. We got a far better deal on 60 acres in Nebraska and settled here instead. The soil isn't as rocky, the mountains not as pervasive, and the wildlife (except for moose and elk) are just as prolific. Plus we usually get spring a month earlier here. We really enjoyed Idaho, but you should do as other posters have said - go there, look around, rent if possible, and see what you like and what you don't like. One area can be very different from another. My brother used to talk about the 'real radicals' in the northern part of the State, apparently Ruby Ridge and Randy Weaver-isolationist types in their minds is exemplary of the far northern part of the state. Although we did hear that retired firefighters and police officers were moving to the Sandpoint region from CA and all over the country; apparently the fishing and hunting there is pretty amazing for retired active people.

Where we moved to in Nebraska is very rural (145 people in town) and it hasn't been 'discovered' yet, in spite of the slightly warmer temps than ID, or the great hunting and fishing, and Mind-yer-own-business types here. We hope it never is, but you never know...

[Handy Strandy]

I prefer coeur d' Alene myself as far as north Idaho goes. Small town feel and a short and easy commute to spokane, WA if you need to get your bigger city feel from time to time.
The smaller outskirt towns would also be great if you really want the one store size town like Athol or Rathdrum yet still close to all the areas great features.