Some of you might have noticed the lack of a rant for last week. Lay the blame on a road trip I took to see one of my daughters and her family living in Idaho. The visit was wonderful. I had a great time playing with the grandkids. It was too hot to do much outside, but one morning before it got too hot, we took a stroll on what they call the Green Zone, a nice place to walk your dog or just walk. I also toured downtown Boise near the capitol building. We couldn’t get any closer than two blocks to the capitol building as there was a bicycle race going on and cars were blocked out of the area.

I couldn’t help but notice that there is construction everywhere. New homes and businesses are being put up and older landmarks are being refurbished. I was told that people are rushing into the state, at least into the area where my daughter lives. One reason is that there are many jobs available.
Something I heard over and over from both my daughter and her husband was how family friendly the area is. It seems Idaho loves family life unlike California or Oregon where rules and regulations seem designed to keep family members from doing those things that keep them together. For instance, in Idaho a family can go camping without paying a fee equal to the amount Motel 6 used to charge a couple of years ago which is what one pays in California or Oregon. The town where my daughter lives has special valves that spray the sidewalks in one area where people take their walks so their dogs feet or kids’ bare feet don’t fry. Family friendly activities are everywhere. There were too many instances of the area’s family friendly policies to mention but take my word for it, they have both California and Oregon beat.

Idaho definitely has California and Oregon beat in another category. The roads in Idaho, at least the ones I traveled on, are in better shape than the other two states where cars have been lost in pot holes so large they used the fallen auto as part of the fill for the pothole. But before you get ready to go in search of smoother traveling, you need to know that Idaho drivers do not respect the red light. I’ve seen this in other states as well, but Idaho drivers seem less likely to stop at a red light than in other states. When driving in Idaho, stay alert!

Traveling west on Interstate 84, I was shocked to see signs in Idaho that said, “Speed Limit 80 MPH.” I must say that there were few drivers who took advantage of this speed. Most were driving in the 65-70 MPH range. I suppose the price of gas has something to do with this. Eighty miles per hour burns a lot of gas. When I passed into Oregon the speed limit was 70 MPH and there seemed to be more than twice as many going 80 MPH. What do you make of that?

Whatever you make of the speed of traffic, Idaho is a nice place to raise a family. I have one warning, however. This area is the source of many food crops: corn, wheat, onions, beans, and sugar beets are the main ones. Care must be taken to not disturb the farms that are producing these foods. I grew up in Modesto, California and watched as a small farming community turned into a massive metropolis. In doing so, many acres of the best soil for farming in the world were ripped up and covered with blacktop for housing projects and endless strip malls. Orchards, vineyards, and fields of all kinds of vegetables and melons disappeared over night. All of that productive soil is now ruined and may never be reclaimed. At some point, developers need to cool their jets about making money and realize we need farmland to feed us.