Why Boise? The Full Answer to the Inevitable Question

Before I get started let’s get this out of the way—most of us pronounce Boise wrong. If you just read that Boy-zee, you pronounced it incorrectly. We learned that the hard way by making it clear we aren’t from around here, and now put a lot of effort into consciously saying it the right way—pronounced Boy-see with more emphasis on the first syllable. It is a French word that means wooded (the more you know).

So back to business. We’ve lived in Boise for two weeks now and through the process of leaving D.C. and arriving here we’ve had people on both ends display their excitement for our move but follow it with “So why Boise?” On one hand I can count those who do not live in Boise but have visited and exclaimed “Boise is an amazing city! It’s really up and coming, great choice!” So I understand the question as most people on the East Coast have never visited Idaho and immediately just think of potatoes, while many who live here know what a gem (pun intended) the state is and are curious as to how two people decided to move across the country and settle here of all places.

So I thought what better platform than my blog to simply tell the story that I never have time to tell in conversation for the sake of brevity. Myresponse usually goes something like “we wanted to get out of the sprawling metropolis and have easier access to the outdoors.” That satisfies people but I feel like I’m only giving an eighth of the answer. So let’s go back a few years…

It started a few years ago

From the time I moved to Washington, D.C. in December 2014 Jeremy and I knew we didn’t plan to live there for the rest of our lives. We didn’t have a place in mind but knew that we would be willing to move abroad again or we wanted to go somewhere with mountains. After living a few hours from the Bavarian and Austrian Alps we couldn’t imagine the rest of our lives on mostly flat land. Not to mention I grew up in Wisconsin and Ohio running around and playing in the woods and fields around my home. I’ve always felt most at peace, most at home, when I could easily escape into nature. I couldn’t get that in D.C. and being surrounded by concrete after living on my quiet Ammerthaler Weg on the outskirts of Amberg, I quickly started to feel suffocated.  I had my bachelorette party in Asheville, NC in July 2015 and promptly decided it could be our home one day.

Once I got into grad school and that solidified the next few years of our life Jeremy and I developed a plan that we would stay in D.C. for about three years after I finished grad school. Our logic was that his retirement savings would be vested at that point and it would give me a few years to get settled in my career switch before seeking a job outside of the mecca for public health that is the National Capitol Region.

During my terminal leave for the Army during the summer of 2016 I spent about two weeks in the Pacific Northwest and went on a road trip with my aunt and mom all over Oregon from the coast to Crater Lake to Bend and the high desert. I visited Mount Rainier and Vancouver, BC as well. I was entirely smitten and returned from my trip and told Jeremy that I could live there and he had to go back with me and see it. He reminded me to slow down because I hadn’t even started grad school yet but that we can always keep these places in the back of our mind and consider our options. That sounded fair.

A series of coincidences?

Once I started school I didn’t spend much time thinking about where we would head next. I was busy with classes and papers and I had found a job I absolutely loved with coworkers I adored at Marketing for Change. In May 2017 that job turned into an offer for a full time position when I graduated the following year. That settled my restless heart as I looked forward to becoming a permanent part of an amazing company.

At the same time, I caught Jeremy looking at lists of promising cities, the Best Cities in the U.S. for Young Adults by USA Today, and things of that nature. He was just “exploring future options” and checking out potential job markets. Guess what city was in the top 10 on most of those lists?….Boise, Idaho. Boise, huh? Curiosity got the best of these East Coasters and we started researching Boise out of sheer lack of knowledge about the city and the region. We discovered it was gorgeous and booming. It had all the amenities of a city but within 15 minutes you could be in the middle of the National Forest. The humidity is low and the elevation is high  (compared to D.C.) at 2,700 feet. Hmmm something to consider in a few years.

Then in August 2017 and I attended a running and writing retreat called Wilder in Sisters, OR. The retreat was hosted by a running legend, Lauren Fleshman, and brought together writers who run and runners who write from all over the country. At the end of the retreat I was looking to burn a few hours before my late flight and needed to catch a ride into Bend because I wanted to visit my all time favorite brewery—Crux Fermentation Project—which I discovered during my Oregon road trip the year prior. As fate would have it my kind and generous friend Samia offered me a ride because it was on her way home—to Boise, ID.

It seemed like fate that Jeremy and I discovered Boise on those lists and took an interest in it, then I meet someone who had moved from Washington, D.C. to Boise! Because yes, Samia was from the DMV and could speak to making the exact same transition. She was honest and unfiltered with me and told me the (mostly) good, the few bad, and the rare ugly. I appreciated her candidness and when I got home I told Jeremy all about it, which only further piqued our interest and moved Boise and Asheville to the top of our “potential future home” list. Something important to note, I don’t think we told a single person we were considering any of this. Mostly because we truly believed this would happen in another 4 years so why bring it up?

So in the meantime, let’s buy a house

Around the same time Jeremy and I started discussing the desire to buy a home in D.C. as rent is high and we wanted to invest in something instead of throwing our money at rent. That seemed contradictory to some people who associate buying a home with putting down roots. With the expectation we would be in D.C. for at least four more years, we thought we could buy a place and then sell or rent it out once we were ready to leave. We decided we would start looking heavily in the late Fall when fewer people are looking to buy, because who wants to move in the dead of winter?

Fast forward to late November. After spending Thanksgiving in Asheville we decided we loved the city but the job market didn’t look great for us there. It was time to start focusing on our house hunting phase of the plan anyway. And focus we did! I don’t want to spend too much on that nightmare but we basically went from being priced out of townhouses, to being priced out of remodeling a gut job, to settling on purchasing a condo. The market in D.C. is insane and we could barely find anything within the VA loan limit in areas that wouldn’t make our commute hell.

We found a condo we thought we loved in a neighborhood we knew we loved (Shaw) and made the mistake of going under contract on a new construction when the certificate of occupancy hadn’t been issued yet. We believed the claims from the seller that it would be coming within a few weeks and after several loan rate extensions and some investigation with the city housing department we discovered we were being duped and the condo had some major issues that wouldn’t be repaired or allow it to pass inspection anytime soon. In the end, we were forced to back out in late February and tried to resume our search with very little luck. It was an emotionally taxing experience riding the roller coaster from the high of being a new homeowner and making all the little plans for your new space to the low of choosing to walk away from it.

After being a day late on making an offer and a few frustrating dead end visits, Jeremy and I sat at a Starbucks before going to mid-March Saturday evening mass at our church in Shaw. As we discussed the frustration I told him maybe we would have to rent for another year. We just couldn’t afford anything and I didn’t have the time to focus on house hunting as I was nearing the end of grad school and needed to focus on my thesis project. It turns out our failure was a complete blessing in disguise…

Listen to your heart

I went into mass and spent some time praying about the whole situation, considering whether I was really listening to God and to my instincts or if we were throwing ourselves into buying this home because it was what we thought we were supposed to do. Something just hit me while I was praying. I had this overwhelming sense that we were supposed to stop looking for a house and leave Washington, D.C.  That we were supposed to follow our hearts and that there was a reason we kept finding ourselves discussing where we would move next and adding cities to a list of potentials.  I’m not saying I believe there was divine intervention telling me to leave D.C. and go to Boise specifically, but I do believe I took the time to open my heart and listen, to be quiet and reflect, and trust God—and my instincts—instead of convincing myself we had to stick to this practical plan.

Jeremy was 100% on board. When we had the discussion he agreed that there was no reason we HAD to stay in D.C. for the next three years other than an arbitrary plan we had created based on retirement savings (which we found out was already vested) and gaining practical work experience. We thought we would just renew our rental lease and consider moving in the late fall or spring. I was comfortable with that as I focused on finishing grad school and looked toward starting my full time job.

Like really, listen and follow through

Jeremy is a more confident and decisive person that me. It is something I admire about him and try to draw from him. While my reflective nature and desire to be prepared can be a great thing, sometimes I don’t actually listen to myself and Jeremy is more willing to trust his instincts. Examples: Jeremy decided he was going to get out of the Army and dropped his paperwork in a matter of a month…I contemplated, soul-searched, researched graduate schools, waited until I got accepted to GW, and turned the decision into a nearly two-year process. While I met with the admissions counselor, read great american classics to expand my vocabulary, studied extensively, took the GRE twice, and wrote and re-wrote essays in preparation to even apply for grad school, Jeremy was inspired by me and applied, was accepted, and started classes all in about two months.

So while I thought a potential move was a safe distance away and hadn’t committed to anything yet, Jeremy immediately started looking at and applying for jobs. I was terrified and although he convinced me to sign up for alerts on LinkedIn and the Idaho HR website I was passively looking and focusing on my thesis. I did come across a position with the Idaho Office of Drug Policy that massively piqued my interest and would be a position focused on issues I care deeply about, including substance abuse and the opioid crisis, where I could really use my MPH. But I merely flagged it and told myself I couldn’t worry about that right now.

The kick in the butt I needed

The following week I met a man named Rey Ramsey during my 1-credit leadership seminar. Rey is a serial entrepreneur and one of the most charismatic people I’ve ever met. It just so happened that Rey finished law school on the East Coast and moved to Portland, OR on a whim after he graduated. He then worked for the state of Oregon in business development and landed where else but Bend, OR.

Rey also talked about listening to our hearts and trusting out instincts. He said “if you find yourself making a list of pros and cons about a decision you’re facing, it means you are going against your natural instinct. You’re trying to convince yourself. And we have enough to fight about and fight for in this world, why would we fight with ourselves?” DAMN, Rey’s words made an impact on me. I talked to him after and told him how we were considering a move, that Jeremy was decisive and applying for jobs, and I was honestly scared to take the next step and disrupt what I had waiting for me in D.C. after I graduated even though I knew I felt like I needed to leave the city. Rey told me that he respects Jeremy, that Jeremy has the right approach. We have one life to live so it is best to live it decisively. And he said “Apply for the damn job. You might not even get a call back so what harm is there?” Both a reality check and great advice.

I went home and applied for the job. And I got a call back for a phone interview. Around that time Jeremy and I discussed the fact that we were considering moving to a city we had never visited. A city we loved via pictures and word of mouth! So I suppose it was more infatuation than love. And we decided we needed to visit ASAP. On a whim we booked flights for the following weekend, the second in April 2018. That was serendipitous as my phone interview turned into a request for an in-person interview.

And our future in Boise was sealed

When we visited we fell head over heels for the city of Boise, ID. We approached the visit from the perspective of potentially living here; we got a list of things to do from Samia and we drove the neighborhoods, looked at homes, ran in the foothills, went to three breweries, ate tacos, bought kombucha and buffalo jerky at the Saturday market, and had dinner with Samia and her husband. One quick trip to the foothills and the Boise National Forest and I felt at home, I felt the serenity I naturally long for and the inspiration and awe that comes with it. We left Boise and decided it had to be our future home. We would have an entire part of the country we hadn’t explored at our fingertips. And on the trip we had found a home we wanted to purchase, half a mile from the foothills, two miles from downtown, and we could AFFORD it. Within a few weeks everything fell into place as I was offered the job, we made an offer on the house and it was accepted, and Jeremy had lined up several interviews.

Between late April and May 22 we informed our companies we would be leaving (tearfully in some cases–bittersweet is a good word), informed our friends, started packing, I presented my thesis, closed on our house, and I graduated. Many of our friends were surprised by our decision, which is fair because we surprised ourselves. They were all incredibly supportive, helped us pack and load up, and promised to come visit (anyone reading this I’m holding you to it). We took a pre-planned two week trip to Thailand, returned June 6th and left for Boise on June 9th on a 4-day cross-country trip in a U-Haul with Bailey. We’re happy, getting settled in our house, and excited about the trials and tribulations of being homeowners. I can’t wait to join a local running team and share more stories and posts from our adventures here in Boy-see 🙂

So there you have it! The story of why and how goes a little deeper than simply a desire to move west. But at the same time…it boils down to following our hearts to move west!

In the possibly misinterpreted words of Led Zeppelin maybe it comes down to this:

“There’s a feeling I get
When I look to the west
And my spirit is crying for leaving.”