Looking for a nice quiet conservative lifestyle. I hear Washington County is good for retirement? Some of the things I'm looking for in no particular order,
Decent hospital
Affordable housing
Rifle range
Pool hall
late model / sprint car dirt track
Casino
Non laborious part time work appropriate for a old retired guy.
Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Washington County will be south of Iowa City, so you've got the hospital set (UIHC).  Same for casino. Riverside.  Iowa isn't too bad on ranges but most will only go 200 yards.  Don't know of any specifically in the Washington area.  Most places are begging for help, you should be able to find something to keep you amused.  

Gun laws, pretty much everything but machine guns is a go.  Constitutional carry, shall issue if you want a permit (they're handy to have and good for five years).  Open carry is permitted but rarely seen, just not an Iowa thing.  Gun shows are still pretty good.

Housing costs shouldn't be too bad but your are somewhat close to Iowa City.  

Politics are currently solid Republican but Iowa has  purple streak.  The current Democratic party is a train wreck and has been  for the last couple of cycles.  It will come back some day.   Iowans trust one party for only so long.

Weather, we have all four seasons.  Frequently in the same week.  Washington is far enough south that winters aren't too bad.  The snow belt is a good two hours north.  

Deer hunting is good.  Pheasants are coming back.  Fishing options are many.  There are dirt tracks around the state but I honestly don't follow that sport.

Knoxville (Marion County) has Sprint Car races every Saturday night all summer long, including Nationals...

30 minutes south of Des Moines so access to shopping, jobs, and great hospitals/ Drs.

Marion County Sportsman's is just East of town and has good Trap and High Power Ranges.

Prairie Meadows Dog Track/ Casino is in Altoona, East side of Des Moines. About 45 minute drive.

You can try Palo alto County. Its not big but we have a range near cylinder that goes up to 200 yards along with a trap shooting range and pistol range. The range has nice metal hanging targets, only problem is they dont plow the roads going out there during the winter. Theres a pretty decent hospital and casino in emmetsburg and a few gunshops in the area. Its also fairly close to Okaboji if you like boating. There is also a billards thing in milford but ive never been nor know much about that. As for part time jobs and dirt tracks im not so sure.

Western Iowa either near council bluffs or further north towards sioux city would meet your wants.

I have low key vented about it elsewhere in IA HT, but my #1 test for “Conservative”, in the conservation of the Constitution sense, is whether or not a testicle-bearing guy owns and can operate his own AR-15.  If someone’s answer to that test is no, they aren’t a Conservative, imo, and they are some shade of socialist.  If yes, we can dig deeper to find out what kind of Conservative you are.  With that explanation, I have to say that I have been very surprised by the lack of AR owners in Iowa given what has unfolded post-2019.

I think the farmboi image combined with hunter-fisher fudd is the masculine identity in Iowa.  So while Iowa might generate R voting outcomes, Iowans have a hyperKaren governor and I do not really consider them to be either welcoming of outsiders or Conservative…in my experience.

I didn’t move from Chicago, but I lived there for a period of my life and while this was when you couldn’t really legally purchase or own any firearm in Cook county, there were and are what I consider to be authentic masculine testicle-bearing men in abundance, sans AR-15s.  Many of them bought modern weapons since 2020 got their attention.

I think the modern farmers are almost always fat AF from imbibing Busch Lite and are often beneficiaries of land handed down to them.  I also believe that the farmers are naturally socialistic because of the Cooperatives and needing to pool machinery and labor to get planted and harvested in often tight windows.  By default, they have to share and help each other out and their wealth hasn’t been acquired through entrepreneurship per se.  Is this universal, common or just me?  It isn’t just me at least.  My grandfather was a farmer who became an entrepreneur in the ag business and built a seed company.

You are retirement age, so maybe I am sharing too much, but I think it is important to distinguish between Conservative state and Republican voting era.  I think the other stuff more or less is already covered above and you can find some Indian casinos and buy more house for the money, but the property taxes are not low and you will want to factor in property maintenance equipment costs if you by more than an acre or so home.

Dirt tracks are never far away.  I have some extended family in the Protivin area that is big into racing.  I went to the Double D rodeo in Tama with my family this summer and it was fun, but no bull riding.  The Iowa state fair was a pleasant surprise, but it could have been the perfect weather and time of the week, too.

If you have family in Protivin I've probably met them.  I'm in Alta Vista. Lots of small towns in the area that if you don't live there you've probably never heard of them.

Wife’s family is Czech pedigree…well known family name in that town.  I’ve been through there a few times over the years  (10+ years including visits to family) to get pizza, but that’s about the extent of my depth there.  Iowa definitely has lots of small towns and the locals probably vary widely for that matter.  I just expected more from rural Iowans than what the reality is, in my experience.  The best part of the small town thing is all of the parades for any good or bad reason.  If you like parades, Iowa will be heaven.  ??

What part(s) do you want do disagree with?

What's a nice suburb of Iowa City? Condo guy here, no desire to do yard work ever again!

Coralville or North Liberty.  Tiffin is growing.  

I doubt you will like the Peoples Republic of Johnson County.  Think of it as Berkley East.  Also rather expensive.

My wife's family is Czech too-definitely the dominant heritage in the area.

Johnson county is one of the most expensive places to live in Iowa. If you are willing to drive a bit for work and entertainment, find a bedroom community. Most the bigger towns have work and people drive a few miles to go shopping, out to dinner, etc. There two dirt tracks within 20 minutes of where I live, two hospitals within 30 minutes, and my housing costs are less than $700/mo. I live in southeast Iowa and grew up in Iowa City.

2 dirt tracks? I'm interested!

come to Chicago I'll show you crazy expensive! people rent semi finished basement rooms for $800-$1000 a month here. right now gas is holding steady at $4.00 a gallon.

You have to be careful in SE Iowa.  There's a line you don't want to cross.  On the north side of the line you'll feel like:  Yeah, this is great, small town, nice people, just the right amount of redneck livin.

Then on the south side of that line it's:  Why is that bald kid sittin on that rock strummin a banjo?

What about fort madison or Burlington?

Pick a city on the Mississippi in Iowa from Dubuque to Ft. Madison, in my opinion, they are all dirty river towns.  All seem to have high violent crime, they flood from time to time and tend to be a bit too liberal for me.  Muscatine is a great example.  Once upon a time, more money went through Muscatine than any other city in Iowa.  Why did Muscatine never become more than it is?

Now, pick a small town within 20-25 miles of those cities and there are some great places to live.

Farther north on the river, I always thought Guttenberg was a neat town, but have no real experience.  I often wondered if a lot of the problem with the cities from Dubuque south, was that they were across the river from Illinois.

From my experience living and working on the other side of the river from those towns....... No. Just no.

Washington county born and raised if you have any questions can pm me there is a 25,50, 100y DNR range just out side of Washington

Riverside or Ames? Washington county?

Riverside is a nice small town but it's close enough to Iowa City to be more expensive on the housing but to you may be worth it to be closer to all the action

What's the retirement job scene look like in riverside/Washington County ?

You'd be close to Iowa City I'd think the possibilities for work would be endless

I don’t know what your income expectations are, but I’d think proximity to a Menards is what you might want to look at.  I spend a lot of time and money at Menards.  If you earn and get a decent employee discount, it’s leveraged.

ETA - I own a home and land in Iowa, have livestock, etc., but come with lower expectations and you will be ok.  The biggest surprise to me has been the magnitude of FUDD.  You might find more AR community in an urban city even.  ??

ETA 2 - The second surprise has been the obesity and misc. expenditures to make Iowa comfortable living.  Property taxes are not cheap and the state just raped everyone with assessments last spring.  Groceries are not good and/or cost more in many cases.  The barilla pasta plant is in Ames, for example, and it costs over 2x for the same pasta than it did/does 1k miles away.  I think Iowa City and west Des Moines have the best hospitals in the state, if those are potentially needed.

Dirt track is Boone just West of Ames. Link Ames is a college town like Iowa City. Newton has Iowa Speedway Link
Knoxville Link

Casinos Tama, Osceola, Prarie Meadows in Altoona E of Des Moines

Thanks for the reply booger. Fascinating how people equate gun ownership with conservatisn. Shit tons of Chicago liberals are into guns. 3 years in the Army and 56 years in Chicagoland I'm ready to pump the brakes. Going to lease for a year to see if I like the state. If not I'll be moving on. 60 years old next year so a good hospital close by is a must. I called a realtor in Cedar Falls and he said he'd put me to work hanging drywall, I got a good laugh at that. I'm thinking driving a delivery truck two or three days a week.

Pella?

Nice town, near Lake Redrock if you like fishing or boating.  Oskaloosa is SE of it, another nice town.  Not too far from DesMoines or the dirt track in Knoxville.

Kalona?

Very nice small town in Amish country i went to school there

If the Amish are there it must be expensive?

Having a well know excellent school district and proximity to Iowa City maybe but the Amish has nothing to do with it unless you want to buy 80 acres

I met an Illinois refugee who just moved to Waukee a couple of weeks ago.  Retired fireman of 40 years and raging Conservative.  What shocked him most about Iowa was the humidity.  Second to that was the dearth of quality restaurant options, but ymmv.

Marshalltown also has a dirt track and might be closer to what you are looking for.

As far as why I draw a line on AR ownership as a minimum entry test, it's because the AR is more than a rifle now and has become a cultural and political symbol...first.  There are people who do not know how to shoot an AR, but bought it because the control freaks make every effort to deny their ownership and availability to Americans.  They take every opportunity to propagandize against the AR and so the control freaks are the ones who have made the AR into the most significant symbol of defiance against their desired tyranny.

The AR will be more culturally significant than the AK is to Russia as time goes on, but it is already there if you step back and observe.

Good luck.

Not necessarily. They tend to buy properties that are near their own. Everything you need is available from the Knoxville/Pella area to the west side of the state.

Iowa's a free state, very gun friendly, and the people are incredibly nice.

My favorite, made in Pella, IA.  The store is right on the town square, east side I think.

Cool little town.

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We used to get it with blue cheese it was awesome but I haven't seen it in a long time