PazTripReports: (Western) Idaho State Fair

It probably says something about this fair that our favorite part was the Oregon Visitors booth. Certainly we will arrive in Oregon today with our expectations for our five week stay sky high.

We are not sure exactly why Idaho has an eastern fair and a western fair...but I'll speculate.

My impression is that Idaho is divided into three population pods, none of which have much in common with the other and are separated by long distances, few roads and minimal air service.

The total population of the state is just over 1.5 million, which is less than Bexar County; and it has been stagnant for several years. More than one-third of Idahoans live here in Ada County (Boise) and an adjoining county to the west. There is a similar, but smaller, concentration in the southeast part of the state around Pocatello.

The northern panhandle portion of the state is even more isolated from Boise than the southeast and is in a different time zone. Generally, I think, the people in the north that want to go to a large city go to Spokane; the people in the southeast go to Salt Lake City and most of those that live in the southwest part of the state live in Boise. It's almost like three separate places that have little interaction with one another.

One thing Idahoans do have in common is race. Less than one percent are Black and about 11 percent are Hispanic. There are, however, lots of Mormons. Idaho has the second largest percentage of Mormons of any state; behind, of course, Utah. One in four Idahoans are Mormons and they are heavily concentrated in the southeast part of the state.

Whoops, I go sidetracked. Back to the (Western) Idaho State Fair.

It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. If you looked really hard you could find an Idaho beer and an Idaho baked potato; both a real potato and ice cream made to look like a baked potato. Boise State had a huge presence and Betsy was able to score a nice 2010 Fiesta Bowl polo shirt for $5.