When you look in an Idaho guide book you see vast forests and wilderness, white water rivers, and wildlife in abundance. Imagine our surprise when we approached Boise and saw nothing but high desert with dry, eroding sand hills and sagebrush. The green look of the city stems mostly from sprinklers fed by Lucky Peak Reservoir just outside the city. The reservoir is also the place for local boat enthusiasts to have fun, and we sometimes took the dogs to the area for walks.
Boise and the desert lie in The Treasure Valley edged by The Foothills (of The Boise Mountains of The Rocky Mountains) on the north side and The Owyhees in the south. Within an hour’s drive you can be in the mountains, covered with Ponderosa Pine and other mountain plants. The wildlife is still hiding, though, and even spotting a common Mule Deer seems exciting. Idaho City, an hour's drive northeast of Boise, is a quaint little town (and really old according to Idaho standards) and a place we took the dogs regularly to let them run and sniff. Sometimes we explored other regions and there are lots of beautiful places to go, like when we went to Garden Valley to camp and hike by The Middle Fork of The Payette River.
Nature is the best part of Idaho but the openness and attitude of the people we met also suited us well. Unfortunately it is not a good place to work during resessions. The wages lie at a low level and education is not rewarded. Living expenses are not much different from the rest of the country and as a result it can be difficult to make a decent living. When the computer industry had to throw their workers back in the unemployment pool it got even harder to find a decent paying job. In short, we were forced to leave Boise and move to where there were more job opportunities for us. We chose to move to Georgia, near Atlanta, where Mark is from and where his family and oldest friends are. |
