Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Anyone who visits in summer will love the place! It is the best place to be in the summer. But, that lasts 2-3 months tops. Rain and forest fire smoke can ruin a good summer easily. Fall is rainy but nice. Your first winters will be amazing because they are new for your family. Kids will be fighting for the snow shovel in the beginning. Spring is my least favorite, and longest, season.
Homeschooling in So Cal vs. North Idaho will be a big change. Ask yourself if you can homeschool your kids yourself with few choices for suppport. People like Idaho homeschooling because of the hands off regulations. But that means hands off. Nothing like the So Cal options. Also, community options to entertain and educate kids is less. Check out gizmos in cda. That will be your option for extra curricular electives, as well as you can find music lessons. Kroc Center for a somewhat kid friendly gym. That’s basically it.
And internet will be much slower than other areas that have invested in that infrastructure. Online the companies will offer higher speeds, but when you call them, if they are honest, they will tell you that the lines coming in to this area will not support those speeds. Outside of the main city areas, some people have no internet or cell service.
Grocery stores. No Bristol Farms, or even Trader Joe’s. Your best option will be Costco, then Fred Meyer or Safeway. If you want healthier fare, Pilgrims, but you will go broke. If that is a big deal for you, you might stop in and see the options.
There's a Trader Joes right across the border in Spokane. Plus more shopping and restaurants. You get the best of both worlds, space in Idaho, and more shopping in Spokane.
I have some friends, a couple who are natives, who moved from Idaho to San Diego county about 15 years ago or less.
They both really loved the life there, but the husband became homesick. So after about 6 years there, they came back, but they didn't move back here to their hometown, Idaho Falls. They moved to the Treasure Valley, the Boise metro, and that was their best compromise. Before they moved out of state, they had lived in NID for quite some time, and had left there for Boise.
They eventually returned to Idaho Falls to take over a family business here, and were quite content living in Idaho Falls. But things change over time, and the biz was sold. They moved to Sand Diego county to be near to other family members who moved there decades ago.
In the bones of winter here, the husband would call me and talk about how great the weather was down there. I would cuss him, freezing to the bone here, but as often as not, the conversation would end with him talking about how much he missed the cold and the snow.
Old Mother Idaho is like this. Her children all grow to miss their mother over time, even if they never return. The thing here is: our winters are magnificent. Since they last so long, it's the cold, not the magnificence, that causes someone here to leave, but the beauty calls out to us in time, once the cold is only a memory.
Many who are born here and move away do return later on. Not because of our great weather. Because the life here is different. Nostalgia is a powerful magnet.
I don't think this is something special to just Idaho; yearning for the place you were born and raised seems to be very common in us all.
.................In San Diego is perfect 95% of the year. 70 degrees and sunny just about everyday.........................
The things that would be important to us:
- Good community of people, strong community feel
- Access to good schools
- Good grocery stores (hey, you gotta eat!)
- Slower pace of life, more down home feel (people here are so busy, hard to connect at times)
- Outdoor activities (camp, hike, shoot, ski, bike, swim)
- Gotta be green. We are tired of the brown.
- Good restaurants (both kid friendly and ones for date night)
Would love to hear from locals and transplants. Thanks for your time reading this.
I moved to CDA in 1978 and left for good about five years later. I have very fond memories of my time there, but have no interest in moving back.
First reason was the lack of strong community feel. It was better than many "small" towns, not sure how it is today. Anyway, CDA is no longer a small town, but that community feel is important. For me, many people move to CDA to "get away from government", well, government, particularly local government IS community doing thing together!!
Schools were awful during that time period. I suspect they haven't gotten better. Check carefully using nation wide standards. NOT Idaho standards. Well, lets say north Idaho standards. There is a lot more emphasis on education in southern Idaho.
Good grocery stores. This was one of the highlights of CDA during those times. Great stores with great food for that time period. Not sure if it is true today. The rest of the world caught up with CDA!
Connecting with people is difficult anywhere in the Northwest. People are much friendlier in southern Idaho and Montana. Must be that Scandavian influence.
Outdoor activities are great, except for bird hunting and large Wilderness areas, but you can get to those easy enough.
Gotta be green...it is green. I prefer brown. The sunshine comes with brown, the rain and snow come with green.
Good restaurants. They were great in the late 70's. Probably not as good relatively today. As with grocery stores...the rest of the world catching up.
The WEATHER. My first year in CDA I had a fire in the fireplace on Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day. That winter it was -25F and CDA Lake froze solid. But the cold is fine. It is the dark and cloudy weather that gets to you. I moved up from California and the southwest (Arizona) so it was a real shock to the system. It was the reason for leaving.
IF you like the weather then you will probably do ok. Like I said I have fond memories of CDA, but the weather memories are just dreary.
Like you, I could live and work anyplace in the west fairly easily. It helps when your employer is the Federal government and your profession is Forestry. With that CDA was a great stop in my life, but it wasn't where I chose to spend the rest of my life.
The negatives to CDA for me were:
THE WEATHER. See above.
Lack of community. Poor library, schools, and cultural stuff. The community was not forward looking. You can see it in the lack of internet access and other services.
The positives were:
The outdoors. And during the late 70's it was relatively uncrowded. It was great to go to trailheads and find NOBODY there.
Spokane. I even considered moving there. Not sure Spokane is that attractive these days. But it has better weather, no income tax, great medical, good library, and lots of metro services that were not available in CDA. Remember in the late 70's K-Mart was the only national chain in CDA!!
Good luck in your choices and decision.
I would consider staying in San Diego until your kids are grown, but getting a RV and taking the kids traveling through the west all summer. You get to look at towns up close and your kids get to explore the west while still keeping a home base in San Diego. Cellular connections these days are better than most internet connections in much of the US. There are lots of people working on the road with a cellular connection.
I ended up in eastern Washington with much better weather. Fiber internet since 2001 but the municipal internet is slow to upgrade. So currently, we are still stuck at 1Gbps!!! Hopefully, we will get to 10Gbps soon. Great library, etc. But we are getting overwhelmed with refugees from Seattle. And weather is much better than CDA....but in the winter the weather is much better in Arizona.
I've only been here for a 1 1/2 years coming from North County San Diego. I would never go back. This is Idaho, it does have a real winter. It has a cool spring, a beautiful fall, and busy and exciting summer. Up here you're close to Canada, Montana, and Washington state. You have numerous streams, rivers, deep lakes. Sailing, kayaking, fishing, scuba diving, boating, swimming, some beaches, and you don't have to worry about sharks, jelly fish, and the Tijuana sewage spill in Mission Bay.
You have wild berry picking in the forest, shooting, ATV riding, snow machining, horse back riding, hunting, camping, animal watching right outside your door. Less traffic, less people. You can join a club, group or whatever. You can go places out here in the forest and not see anyone. You have space. Taxes are lower, especially car registration.
Just so we don't burst anyone's bubble, "right across the border" in this case means about 1/2 hour drive from CdA.
One Trader Joe's is on South Hill in central Spokane, and the other is a couple miles north of central Spokane.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Teufelshund20
Remember thats nothing though. 1/2 hour driving is like sitting in traffic in SoCal.
I came from SoCal, so I'm used to driving there. But I have to admit that I just "hate" going across the border into Washington and Spokane. It's a huge, spread out city and people drive so aggressively. Maybe I've just decompressed into the retired lifestyle where I'm not in that much of a hurry anymore.
It seems that over here in Idaho, whenever I see a car that cuts in-and-out of traffic, tailgates, or drives erratically, 9 times out of 10 the car has a WA license plate. (That last 1 out of 10 is some pickup driven by a youngster. That is to be somewhat expected. We were all there at one time in our life.)
Over the border, it seems that "everybody" drives aggressively. It feels just like CA. Surely there are more responsible drivers, but I rarely see them. It is uncomfortable and I won't go unless I absolutely need to. A trip to Trader Joes is not a good enough reason to fight that traffic. But I'll have to at least a couple times a month since I'm starting to work with the Sea Cadets. Their closest unit is in Spokane.
Thank you everyone for all your replies. I just realized I let this thread get old without any updates. We're still actively looking to relocate to CDA late this summer from San Diego. Looking seriously at Rathdrum (found a place between Rathdrum and Hauser). It's 1.3miles up the road from the BNSF transfer station so a little concerned about all the trains...
Original plan was to rent our houses here in SD then rent up there, but that is looking to be very challenging on many levels. Think we'll take the plunge and make it happen. Met some great people in CDA this past April.
Winters are a little scary for sure. Trying to figure out if the space/cost in Rathdrum area is better or if getting something smaller w/ less space but maybe in the Dalton Gardens makes more sense. Tough.
Internet:
This has been more of a challenge than I had I originally thought. I hear about Fiber in some locations but don't really know where that is... the house we are looking at does not have cable but it does have fixed wireless through Ptera. 25/8 is the speeds and the latency is good. I know Intermax is another provider in the area for fixed wireless. I was surprised to hear the cost is $110/mo for these speeds. Would love to hear from anyone who has firsthand experience with Internet options in the idea.
Unfortunatly, our area was passed around between different providers for a long time and nobody cable wise did a lot of investment in expansion. 110/month is reasonable for FW at those speeds.
Me personally, I would not live that close to the transfer station, depending on your price range, you may look a bit further north. Athol has cable in a few areas.
Unfortunatly, our area was passed around between different providers for a long time and nobody cable wise did a lot of investment in expansion. 110/month is reasonable for FW at those speeds.
Me personally, I would not live that close to the transfer station, depending on your price range, you may look a bit further north. Athol has cable in a few areas.
Thanks for the info, greatly appreciate it! It does seem a bit challenging to find serviceable information for cable in the CDA area (all areas). I'd much prefer to have cable and natural gas.
Appreciate the insight on the trains as well, definitely a concern I have.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
That's
