Just wanted to post here and let you guys/gals know how lucky you are. I'd say Montana is the best place I've ever been. And I've only seen a little of it. Maybe I should move and help balance out all the west coasters moving in?

What TTM said.

I agree 100%. Especially here in Butte. A bastion for the Democratic party. Relatively cheap housing here and a nice gun club. Lots of fishing and hunting available within an hour drive.

I think outsiders are looked down upon everywhere. Even in Missouri.

I was in Whitefish, and it seems like the invasion there is well underway. Apparently someone on city council or the chamber of commerce approved spending $1000's for full color photo printed streetlight banners promoting mask wearing. Pictures of what I assume are community members with captions like "wear a mask so I can go to work" etc. That seemed pretty whack.

Went down the road to Kalispell and Flathead and it seemed like no one gave a fuck. Servers & bartenders weren't wearing them in most places, which was really nice.

Surprised me how many Toyota pickups there are up there (seemed like everything that wasn't a 3/4+), and how many 4x4/AWD vehicles you see with snow tires. I guess when you're in BFE, the last thing you want to do is get stranded. Big difference from CO where maybe 20% of vehicles have snow tires and it's a complete shitshow every time it snows. Let alone here where most tires don't have any tread left on them, let alone a snow rating.

DEEP blue sky, it was beautiful.

Your observations are correct.

Whitefish is fraught with douchebaggery.  It’s the liberal center of the Flathead valley...city mask ordinance and everything.  I won’t spend a cent in that town....

Kalispell and Cfalls are good.  Bigfork is somewhere in between.

I’m a Evergreener...it’s a good place to be, but getting ridiculous expensive.  I couldn’t afford to move to the valley now...at least not with the kind of place I have now....van down by the river, maybe.

That is a real shame. Whitefish (lake and mountain) is beautiful. You can tell there has been some big time development / bigger houses built on the mountain in the last 10 years.

As far as Bigfork, the restaurant we went to there wasn't bothering with face diapers. Bigfork looked like a nice little town.

Will probably do a bit more exploring up there this summer. Might rent a boat and do some exploring on Flathead; but I'm afraid the wife won't let me bring her home if I do that.

Pocketstone Cafe in Bigfork was pretty adamant about masks about a month ago. They were offering them if you didn't have one, we declined and just walked to the table that was only 8 feet away. However, they were pretty pissy about it and tried to force the issue. Costco is the only other place I have been to that gets all mask nazi.

Respectfully, if you were in Whitefish, etc and loved it, it may not be MT that you love. That’s kinda like a slice of CO in MT.

Though yes you should move there to balance things out!

Agreed. I don't buy anything in Whitefish. Even when work sends me there, and I'm on full expenses because it's a different district, I pack my own lunch rather than giving them fucking VAMPIRE TAX (sales tax). It kinda sucks, because they have two pizza places I like plus some creep place (Famous Creeps or something, IDK, it's one of those places you park six block away and walk because there's NO parking anywhere in the area, especially for a big truck). I had to go there recently and I ignored their cuckmask bullshit. No one in WBC or NAPA said anything about it, so maybe there are some sane people there.

I live closer to Big Fork than I do to Evergreen, but I still go to Kalispell/Evergreen rather than Big Fork. It's not that I dislike the place or anything, it just doesn't seem like my kind of place. And it's impossible to drive anywhere in the summer. Plus anything they have in Big Fork, I can get for less $$$ with a better selection in Kalispell.

I bought this place not long before CrockVID hit. With the way prices have gone up, there's no way I could have afforded it, and no way I would have paid that price if I could have. I'd probably be living in Valier or Belt or something right now if I hadn't bought this place (though maybe on more acreage), or maybe out toward Libby.

I understand what you are saying. I would say I loved the area, not so much the town of Whitefish. We spent little time in Whitefish itself, most of the time on the mountain and by the lake, Kalispell, etc. The idea of spending tax dollars on mask signage made my blood boil if that gives you any idea. I'm all about snowboarding, but if I was going to live in the area it wouldn't be in Whitefish proper if I had anything to say about it. Like I said above, seems like the invasion there is well underway.
It is a really nice valley for the most part. The prices will probably keep us out. Hopefully all the low-population states don't get overrun with coasters too quickly.

I sincerely encourage you to move to MT. You seem like you’d be a great addition and we need the right kind of people to offset the zoom crowd that have been colonizing Bozeman, etc

Kind of a pipe dream, but it's fun to think about!

When you say zoom crowd, do you mean a lot of people have moved out to work remote?

Damn do the democrats in butte and anaconda pass me off. They're all stuck in that "I'm voting for democrats because my union grandpa did" then wonder why they do shit against them.

Know a union pipe guy who's pretty cool. Yet will only vote for democrats. Huge Biden guy. Then the gun stuff came up, and then the keystone stuff happened and he's all mad about it. But, voted for it.

Butte is a special kind of "a few extra chromosomes". The kind that fingerpaints on the walls with its own feces, then licks its hands clean.

Getting out of there is one of the best things I ever did for my own sanity and future.

I blame the giant dirty unwiped butte-hole.

Yes. With the covid work-from-home boom, lots of people are moving to MT who otherwise would have never been able to live here.

Finding decent work always used to be the main challenge to anyone looking to move here. And even for the few lucky enough to find gainful employment, you were virtually guaranteed a pay cut compared to whatever you were earning in your previous state. We jokingly used to call that the “Montana tax”. Those challenges were part of what made MT great. Most people simply couldn’t move here, and those that were able to make it happen generally had to make sacrifices to do so and really wanted to be here.

The WFH thing is eroding that barrier to entry. Overall it’s not a good thing.

It used to be that even left leaning people who moved to MT, even to places like Bozeman, had to be somewhat tolerant of guns and general redneck shit. Even around Bozeman, it was common to hear lots of gunfire near trailheads and granolas in Subarus would sometimes be denied “the wave” on forest roads. They had to be ok with all of that. That is changing very quickly.

Shit...many of those Subaru driving MT liberals at least owned a bolt action rifle and would hunt seasonally. They could change their own tires. They could buck and split wood. Etc etc. The new ones that are coming here aren’t quite like that. Many of these folks are urban and soft.

To be sure, many of the people moving here are fleeing coastal state bullshit and lots of them are good additions and belong here. However, I’m afraid those that belong are at minimum matched and likely outnumbered by those that really don’t belong here.

It’s interesting to note that people seem to self-segregate, at least for now. Blue towns like Bozeman and Missoula are getting even bluer. The rest of the state seems to be getting redder.

I have noticed that here, too.

The difference from big city to small city is pretty abrupt. Masks everywhere, to masks nowhere.

How are things in MT right now? Are the idiots in places like Whitefish waking up to the fact that they had their busiest season ever and the sky didn't fall?

Wife and I were in the Flathead a few weeks ago looking for our new home (that we can afford, but it’s a bit of a stretch). We’re under contract on a beautiful home in the SW valley area with views to Glacier NP and plan to be moved out there before July 1st.

When we were there, we saw very little masking going on and general traffic was busy. Realtor said that the valley is booming and she expects home prices to continue to appreciate.

Our hotel “required masks” in common areas but that was being routinely ignored, including by us.

We stopped in at Target in Kalispell for a couple misc things and didn’t see a mask sign and only about 2/50 customers we saw were in masks.

Can’t comment on Whitefish. We drove through on 93 after taking a drive north on Farm To Market Rd. The area does have a different feel to it. Pretentiousness mixed with self loathing perhaps? We don’t plan on spending much (any) time up there once we get settled.