Idaho or Wyoming? Which is better for us? (Boise, Nampa: hotel, home)

[NW Crow]

If you want to avoid severe weather, I'd consider Twin Falls or Mountain Home.

Pocatello is less severe in winter than Idaho Falls or Laramie or Sheridan but it will still average 3 winter months with lows generally in the teens and gets about 10 nights below zero per year. Laramie a few degrees colder and 15 nights below zero. Wind is a big issue to many there. Idaho Falls pretty similar to Laramie on thses measures but more snow in town. Sheridan a few degrees even colder and 20 nights below zero.

Twin Falls and Mountain Home average just 1 month of lows in teens and 5 below zero days. Considerably lower LDS % in those 2 places I am told, fwiw.

Size of community is a factor you have to decide.

Visit / evaluate. Try another if it doesn't suit you.

[nm9stheham]

Originally Posted by banjomike

The problem is:
Define "affordable".

Despite all the recent complaints about how crowded and overpriced things here are, I cannot see very much massive change that's happened in the state I've lived in all my life.

To me, Idaho still looks pretty similar to the same under-populated, over-isolated place it's always been. A few counties are more crowded now, and a few cities have grown much larger, but those changes are few and far between, and all of them combined would't fill up the leftover land in the Los Angeles basin.

If I was stone broke, I could still find a house here I could afford to live in, if not to buy. That house would still be in a place that's just as inconvenient and isolated as it ever was, but it sure would be affordable.

And 40 miles away from the most congested place that exists here will still land you somewhere that is so isolated that you will be desiccated and snake-bit by the time you wander your way back to civilization.

Personally, I think the folks who are complaining about our 'affordability' are looking through the wrong end of a telescope.

Trying to have it all- cheap housing, beautiful scenery, great weather year round, every modern convenience we've all grown accustomed to being at hand, all of our necessities easy and cheap and plentiful, and the rest of it, is only a wishful dream. Just as it aways has been.

Life is always a trade-off in many ways. A person has to be very wealthy, extremely wealthy, to have the entire enchilada.
Even then, preoccupation with wealth will limit almost everyone's view. Possessing money never comes with instructions on how best its put to use.

That's the way it's always been, throughout the history of humankind. The only thing that's truly affordable are the things that lift the human spirit, and those things have always been abundant and free for the taking. They're all still around us all, every day, and always close at hand. All anyone has to do is go look for them.

Using the correct end of a telescope to help the view.

Great post, bjm. Lot's of 'I want it all' and ' it's no good if it isn't upscale and trendy' that drives the moves. Lot's of places to go if you can work with 90 per cent of the enchilada, and see past the life value limits of everything being convenient. Been living 'out a ways' all my life. But heck, if folks want to crowd into the cities, that leaves more open space.

[ejisme]

I think the complaint about crowds is at the campgrounds, lakes and any trail (hiking or ATV, etc.) on the weekends. For example, the campgrounds around Anderson Ranch and up the road past Pine are packed on the weekends now, where you used to be able to drive up there on a Thursday afternoon and park your RV most anywhere. I live in Mt Home, and on any weekend it's a stream of 1A and 2C license plates heading up/down HWY 20, or HWY 51 going towards Bruneau. I'm guessing Silver City is pretty busy. I haven't been up there for a few years, but I hear from others there are ATVs and dirt bikes everywhere all weekend long.

[kloos5]

Originally Posted by banjomike

The problem is:
Define "affordable".

Despite all the recent complaints about how crowded and overpriced things here are, I cannot see very much massive change that's happened in the state I've lived in all my life.

To me, Idaho still looks pretty similar to the same under-populated, over-isolated place it's always been. A few counties are more crowded now, and a few cities have grown much larger, but those changes are few and far between, and all of them combined would't fill up the leftover land in the Los Angeles basin.

If I was stone broke, I could still find a house here I could afford to live in, if not to buy. That house would still be in a place that's just as inconvenient and isolated as it ever was, but it sure would be affordable.

And 40 miles away from the most congested place that exists here will still land you somewhere that is so isolated that you will be desiccated and snake-bit by the time you wander your way back to civilization.

Personally, I think the folks who are complaining about our 'affordability' are looking through the wrong end of a telescope.

Trying to have it all- cheap housing, beautiful scenery, great weather year round, every modern convenience we've all grown accustomed to being at hand, all of our necessities easy and cheap and plentiful, and the rest of it, is only a wishful dream. Just as it aways has been.

Life is always a trade-off in many ways. A person has to be very wealthy, extremely wealthy, to have the entire enchilada.
Even then, preoccupation with wealth will limit almost everyone's view. Possessing money never comes with instructions on how best its put to use.

That's the way it's always been, throughout the history of humankind. The only thing that's truly affordable are the things that lift the human spirit, and those things have always been abundant and free for the taking. They're all still around us all, every day, and always close at hand. All anyone has to do is go look for them.

Using the correct end of a telescope to help the view.

Banjomike, this is probably the best post I have read on these forums in a while. Thank you; you Sir lifted my spirits.

[nowhereman427]

I would turn that telescope away from Ada County and more towards Emmett, Parma, Weiser, Fruitland, or Plymouth.

[509]

Wyoming is what Idaho was......


Bonus points to anybody that remembers the original quote.

[NW Crow]

I'd like to know the original quote.

People say "Wyoming is what Colorado was" but I dunno if there are other / earlier usages.

[509]

Originally Posted by NW Crow

I'd like to know the original quote.

People say "Wyoming is what Colorado was" but I dunno if there are other / earlier usages.

Way back in the 70's the state of Idaho ran a tourist promo....Idaho is what America was".


It was actually a pretty successful tourist promo.



My last trip through Wyoming reminded me of my first job in Idaho in 1972. Trips to Idaho today just remind me of California.



Idaho is a pretty crowded state these days. I remember in 1972 I slept in my sleeping bag on the lawn in the Post Falls rest area, overnight with permission of the state of Idaho.



I cannot imagine doing that today!!!


It is a shame, that what we have lost will never come back.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Originally Posted by 509

........ Trips to Idaho today just remind me of California. .........

In North Idaho, they are paving over the prairie as fast as they can and if you go and stand in one of the new housing subdivisions you might as well be standing in Los Angeles. The exact same type of houses on itty bitty lots. You might even get the same sort of vague glimpse of some hills, just like you do in Los Angeles.



At least we don't have the smog (so far), but it won't be long before the entire area is wall to wall houses crammed in together with barely room to walk between them, and all the traffic that goes with so many houses.

[Mister Torgue]

Originally Posted by 509

Way back in the 70's the state of Idaho ran a tourist promo....Idaho is what America was".


It was actually a pretty successful tourist promo.



My last trip through Wyoming reminded me of my first job in Idaho in 1972. Trips to Idaho today just remind me of California.



Idaho is a pretty crowded state these days. I remember in 1972 I slept in my sleeping bag on the lawn in the Post Falls rest area, overnight with permission of the state of Idaho.



I cannot imagine doing that today!!!


It is a shame, that what we have lost will never come back.

Good post. It's pretty much crowded everywhere out west and the south central. I'll try to avoid politics but we all know what's going on.

I spoke to my friend in Bonners Ferry and he's said that the past couple years he's seen a sharp increase in traffic and way more people out in his rural area. An area without cellular service... So yea, it isn't looking good for ID right now with all these people rushing in from certain areas known to change their destinations to what they came from. I really feel for you all up there.