8 reasons why you should move to Coeur d'Alene

COEUR d'ALENE - It's easy to feel cynical right now.

The snow, sleet, gloom, and rain can get a person down, especially in the spring, when it feels like winter will never go away.

Why do we live here again?

What's so good about this place to keep us here 12 months of the year?

So we asked around. We Facebooked the question, cold called on the telephone and went out and asked folks: Why should anyone move to Coeur d'Alene?

Some answers were jokes, plenty were serious, some seemed obvious and others surprising.

"Don't move here," said Alison Lawhead, buying movie tickets at Riverstone on Friday, who thinks Coeur d'Alene is the perfect mesh of small-town vibe and big-city atmosphere. "So the people who were born and raised here can have it to themselves."

Turns out, a lot of people don't want more people to move here. The friendliness of people who live here was one of the big reasons (No. 3) people should move here, people said, so maybe the question is just hypothetical.

We'll ask it anyway. Either way, it's nice to be reminded. Why should people move to Coeur d'Alene?

1. The Great Outdoors. Hikes on the tree-lined Tubbs Hill and Mineral Ridge, walks in nearby national forests, mountains, fishing and skiing in the winter. If the path or trail isn't in town, it's close.

"If you enjoy being able to drive 20 minutes and hit the national forest, then by all means move here," said Steve Anderson, Coeur d'Alene resident. "And you got to like snow."

That snow doesn't bother too many people.

"Truly God's country," local Vicki Isakson described it on the Facebook thread.

Outsiders' eyes can help remind locals, not that they need too much reminding on the top answer.

"After you visit a few times you start to make excuses to stay longer," wrote Washingtonian Scott Lally, who visits Coeur d'Alene several times a year. "The lake, pine trees and wildlife..."

1B. Lake Coeur d'Alene. This one went without saying, but everyone said it anyway. Jim Kravik of Hayden keeps a boat on Lake Coeur d'Alene. He said it best: "Certainly the lake," he said of the best reason to be here. "Everyone (on the water) has a positive attitude because they're doing something they love."

3. Friendly folks and the small town feel. Enough to do to stay entertained, but the "quaint" feeling of small town living is still the norm, lots of people said. Shop owners know customers by name, for example, and ask how the family is doing. Mark Fisher moved away 20 years ago for London. He visited town this week, and while the town grew up in that time, "it still has that small town feel."

"Just like I remember," he said.

4. It's a fit town. Goes hand-in-hand with the outdoors, and all the races and fun runs held every year.

Said Stephanie Leddy, out for a morning walk along the Dike Road, a favorite walking road:

"It's all a fitness state. We're all about health. I've noticed that. Everywhere you go is, like, walkways for you to walk. It's all about being healthy here," she said, adding she would never want to move anywhere else. "No way. If I won a million bucks, I'd never leave."

5. Clean Air. Little pollution and no humidity. Never gets desert-like hot and Siberia cold seems to be a thing of the past. Unlike, say, the Midwest, the air isn't infested with mosquitoes in the summer, either.

"It's horrible," said Erin Zasada, who moved here from Minnesota, describing what it's like to breathe in less than perfect air. "It's attributed to a lack of smog, too, which leads to...

6. No congestion. And it's how many people want to keep it, so when they say why someone should move here, they just mean hypothetically, as stated above.

"Our rush hour lasts what, a half hour?" Steve Anderson said.

7. All the unique restaurants and locales. The Snakepit, the relic on the Coeur d'Alene River, the Wolf Lodge Inn Steakhouse east of town in Coeur d'Alene's foothills and Hudson's Hamburgers, sitting smack downtown for 100 years are some of the favorite spots for locals who know.

"I always bring people to Hudson's when they come from out of town," said Brynn Bemis, eating at the always-packed joint that doesn't serve fries with her brother, Brock, who was visiting from Seattle and brought his kids, eating burgers themselves.

"I'm starting them early," Brock said of the tradition.

8. Spokane. We're giving the neighbors a nod because the locals said so. They like that a bigger city is close by, with a completely different atmosphere than what's at home. Best of all is its airport, they said, which is a breeze to get in and out of and can take you anywhere.

Erin Barrett is a North Idaho College student from Spokane originally, so it's the best of both worlds for her.

"I prefer it here over Spokane," she said.