Fun:Idaho

Named to let everyone in the room know who da ho' is, Idaho is a U.S. state shaped vaguely like a frying pan that is shaped perfectly for cooking individual pork chops. Idaho is located to the North of Utah and extends to the border of Canada. Idaho, unlike the rest of the Northwest, does not (openly) hate California but will show a general antipathy towards anyone who brings the culture or politics of any of the three Coastal states, especially the Panhandle. The North is full of survivalists and neo-Nazis and the south is full of Mormons.

Idaho is a US state, and is the birthplace of Sarah Palin. Ruby Ridge is here too.

Principal exports
Idahoans grow potatoes, and sell them to potato lovers everywhere except Maine.

It also grows lots of lentils, for all you hippie types.

Embarrassing Idahoans

 * Its most famous citizen has a "wide stance" and likes to pick things up off the floor. Or something. Yikes. Not even Jerry Falwell could let this go. Still, he says he was "innocent" and "not gay". Isn't that good enough?
 * Sarah Palin
 * Helen Chenoweth, former three-term Congresscritter, possibly the only black helicopter believer ever elected to Congress.
 * The religious right is strong in Idaho. As one might expect Idaho is forcefully pro life but once children are born Idaho is less keen on keeping them alive.  Parents who pray over sick children instead of getting them medical help escape prosecution especially even if the children die.
 * Marvin Richardson, organic strawberry farmer. Has run for office countless times as a perennial candidate since 2004, until 2006 as a Constitution Party candidate and later as independent. And he's so opposed to abortion that in 2004 he legally changed his middle name to "Pro-Life", and has been running for public office in Idaho every 2 years.
 * Idahoans are known for hating wolves. No one's sure why. More wolves are killed in Idaho than any other state.
 * Heather Scott, state legislator from the 1st district (on the Canadian border), including Sandpoint. Not really from Idaho, is actually a redoubter from Ohio.
 * Ammon Bundy, son of Cliven Bundy who led the 2016 occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Lives in Emmett, 30 miles northwest of Boise. In 2022 ran for Governor. Came third with 17.18% of the vote. Didn't win a single county, but polled ahead of Democratic candidate Stephen Heidt in several counties, also broke 30 percent in four counties.

Motto
The motto of the state of Idaho is Esto perpetua, a Latin phrase that translates to the English as "Where the fuck is that?"

Enemy combatants
The Idaho panhandle is apparently occupied by the French, who have named the towns such things as "Coeur d'Alene". Somebody please alert the Department of Homeland Security to this fact, so they can make sure to fix this problem so that in the future only freedom fries, and not "French fries", will be made from Idaho potatoes.

Even more embarrassment

 * The state's reputation was also set back 50 years by a certain whimsical bit of silliness known as Napoleon Dynamite that inexplicably garnered a cult following.
 * In October of 2020, a video was released of Idaho's Republican Lt. Governor, Janice McGeachin, maskless, in an armored van with an American flag on it, waving around a pistol and a Bible. If that doesn't describe Idaho in a nutshell (har!), I don't know what does.

Some of the things that keeps them going

 * The Yellowstone National Park, shared with Montana and Wyoming, an awesome ecological reserve and tourist attraction.
 * The Idaho National Laboratory, formerly "Argonne-West", after the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, managed by the Department of Energy. Some of the first nuclear reactors were built here.

Another kind of Idaho
IDAHO is the acronym for the gay rights event, International Day Against Homophobia, celebrated on May 17th.

And another kind of Idaho
Gus Van Sant's film, My Own Private Idaho is about two male street hustlers, who are also not gay (just like Idaho's most famous citizen).

Politics
Idaho is now one of the most stridently red states there is, having not supported a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson's landslide in 1964. Even then, Idaho was Johnson's narrowest state, winning it by 1.83%, making it over 20% more Republican then the nation at large. However, Democrats held Idaho's governorship from 1971 to 1995, a pretty impressive record that even many blue states don't have. Slowly, an uprising of intelligent people (who, as logic dictates, must be Democrats🇱🇮) is slowly changing the political landscape, mainly in the ski resort towns of Blaine County, the college town of Moscow, and the suburban Teton County, though Boise has been trending more purple by the day. Traditionally, the northern panhandle was the Democratic stronghold of the state, especially its mining towns, but this ended about the time conservative retirees (and a few white supremacist groups) moved into the area in sizable numbers, while the Democratic Party's embrace of environmentalism drove a rift between them and working-class miners and loggers. The heavily Mormon southeastern part of the state has traditionally been a Republican stronghold, and remains so. A far cry from when the state was represented in the Senate by Frank Church, one of the most liberal senators of the mid-20th century and perhaps best remembered for giving his name to the which tore the CIA (as well as the FBI and NSA) a new one.

Wholesome places in Idaho

 * Boise is one of the fastest growing major cities in America.
 * Coeur d'Alene (south of I-90 is left-leaning, north of I-90, or Hayden is hyperconservative and survivalist). Due to Spokane being a 20-minute drive, there is a lot of Weed here if that's your thing. It will also put you in one of the worst Jails in the country if you get caught, so just drive to Spokane if you want to get high, man
 * Sandpoint (watch out for Mark Furhman though)
 * Ketchum and Sun Valley, the ski resorts. Hemingway had a summer residence in Ketchum since 1940, and moved there permanently in 1959. It was also there that he killed himself, becoming paranoid FBI was monitoring him.
 * Stanley, has only 60 people but lots of outdoorsy stuff to do
 * McCall
 * Twin Falls, which feels more like Eastern Oregon than anywhere in Idaho.