Greetings from a Californian who wants to escape...advice please!

[4Freedom]

Not Idaho. It sucks ,I'll be moving to the ....Bad lands ,yeah,the bad lands of the Dakotas.
Perfect country for all youse folks in the California coast state
Yes I said state

Wow, you are from Salmon, I've been to that town on my way through the Bitteroots. It is really a nice town, although quite isolated. The area has quite unique scenery. I remember seeing all the cowboys on their ranches on my way from Salmon to Darby. It had kind of a Wyoming feel to it. I stayed a short time in Darby, Montana. I do love Idaho. However, Idaho just has way too high of taxes. If it wasn't for those damn taxes I probably would have been in Idaho yesterday. I guess it was ok back before the Californians invaded the state and blasted the property values.

South Dakota has been another place on my radar. Rapid City/Spearfish, right near the Black Hills is quite affordable, low taxes and offers some awesome scenery. Also, I would imagine South Dakota is quite gun friendly, unlike Western Oregon or Washington.

Idaho is gun friendly, but I was surprised at the number of libtards in Boise and how they seem to try to war against all the conservative values of the state. Although, I still scratch my head about Idaho politics. A state so staunchly Republican, seems to have no shame taxing people to death. Very high income and sales tax, even food. At least I know that the Idaho government supports people firearm freedoms. The Californians in Idaho also tend to be more conservative. The liberal Californians move to Western WA/Western OR and Missoula.

 

[WillametteWill]

Good luck with your quest. We escaped three years ago this weekend and love our area east of Salem. I find myself constantly apologizing for being a Cali native / transplant but try to soften the blow in that I vote conservative (three in the fam of voting age) and bring my CA retirement money and other work money north (unfortunately I'm typing this from SoCal).

I completely respect that you want to shoot on your own land, this was my idea as well. Didn't happen but the gun ranges here are AMAZING compared to south of the border. We checked pretty much everything off of our list other than the trap range in the back yard.

Yes, as others have noted, politics are not going in the direction I hoped but one way to look at it is that if more pro gun, conservative folks do more north perhaps we have more of a chance to make a stand. It might be wishful thinking but I'll choose to focus my energy here.

Much better place for the kids. They were good with the move but I know it's hard on them at times. We choose to home school to avoid the challenges we faced for too long (thank you for sticking with the classroom and swimming against the stream politically I'm sure).

Not a lot of specific answers to your questions but hopefully some insight for you from a relatively recent escapee.

 

[RVTECH]

we continue to have an increasing housing cost and declining quality of life.

Very little 'continue' about it - it's already nearly as bad as it can get.

 

[tommy98466]

Your best bet for what you are looking for is Clark County Washington. That's the Vancouver area. I've lived in both Portland and Vancouver and Washington is the better of the two States. One of the benefits is that your major shopping is done in Oregon where there is no sales tax and you live in Washington because there is no Income Tax. Best of both worlds. If Oregon should adopt a sales tax they might as well roll up the sidewalks and put out the lights because it would kill their economy. Even worse than it is.

 

[coastal steelheader]

Wrong track and no hope to change it.

Since the mid-80's when Californian's began moving to the PacWest in droves to take advantage of our low housing cost and high quality of life we continue to have an increasing housing cost and declining quality of life.

Schools? We pay one of the highest in nation and rank nowhere near highest for education quality. I understand why you would want to work here - work less, paid more.

Taxes? About 10 percent income. Property is about $25 per $1000 assessed value.

Traffic? Hahahaha! Good luck living in Vancouver and commuting to Portland area. And you'll still get the Oregon income taxes on top!!

Guns? We will look just like California in the near future.

My advice is to stay where you are and make a stand. Moving here will only delay dealing with what you're running from.

Agreed.
Both WA and OR are pretty much run by the wacko left cities of Seattle and Portland now. Even if all the counties in WA or OR vote in unision against something that Seattle or Portland wants, the counties lose big. The only hope for both states is if some other city is named the new trendy place to be, and all the lefty lemmings leave for there.