Anniemae - 2015-06-21 3:15 PM I've been kicking around the idea of moving up to the PNW in 2017/2018 - yes, I like to plan ahead!! I've already started looking but really have no idea which state/county... West or East of the mountains? Must have running water, a creek is fine. Small acreage 5-10 acres. Access to GOOD vets/clinics, lower property tax rates. Since I'm not familiar with the soil content, I don't want someplace that will be knee deep in mud 1/2 the year - yet I do want rainfall and all 4 seasons... Thinking more of a retirement place. Any suggestions?

Anniemae - 2015-06-21 1:15 PM I've been kicking around the idea of moving up to the PNW in 2017/2018 - yes, I like to plan ahead!! I've already started looking but really have no idea which state/county... West or East of the mountains? Must have running water, a creek is fine. Small acreage 5-10 acres. Access to GOOD vets/clinics, lower property tax rates. Since I'm not familiar with the soil content, I don't want someplace that will be knee deep in mud 1/2 the year - yet I do want rainfall and all 4 seasons... Thinking more of a retirement place. Any suggestions?

hammer_time - 2015-06-23 6:17 PM

Steer clear of the west side: too many people, too wet, too many liberals. Hah! I grew up in Central WA.
--Ellensburg is really windy, steer clear. Strong horse/ranching community though.
--30-40 miles south you have Yakima/Selah/Naches which is a little bigger, but not as pretty. But the weather is 10x better.
--Prosser/Sunnyside/Toppenish are nice little ranching towns.
--Tri-Cities/Walla Walla has the good weather and is like the Mecca of barrel racing. You're also really close to Hermiston. Milder winters in this area. Not terribly pretty areas but still nice enough, especially when you get closer to Walla Walla.
--Spokane area I'm not terribly familiar with but you are pretty secluded on one side of the state as far as traveling to barrel races.
--Bend, Redmond, Terrebonne, Prineville--all pretty good towns and will be a good size with shopping close by. If I had to move to Oregon I'd probably pick Redmond, Bend, or Pendleton.
--The Sweet Home, Corvallis, Philomath, McMinnville, Canby, etc areas are really pretty, but might be too busy with traffic/people.

kakbarrelracer - 2015-06-23 10:27 PM  I have to disagree, I think Tri-Cities, Hermiston, Prosser areas are beautiful. I love the sagebrush, irrigated farmland and sunsets. You can see a long ways around here. :)

hammer_time - 2015-06-23 11:08 PM


 No you're right.  I'm just accustomed to the "actual" desert now, and thinking of the east side of WA kind of bores me LOL.  Speaking of beautiful though, Wenatchee is SOOO pretty to me.  Or like Coulee City area along the Gorge....love it.

livexlovexrodeo - 2015-06-23 5:39 PM I live in western WA, in a little town (Grays Harbor county) about a 1/2 hour south of Olympia (which is Thurston County). Even though I live right on the Chehalis river and we flood ever year, we don't have a mud problem. I dont know why, we don't do anything special, but in comparison to all of my other friends' properties we have very little mud. There's mud right outside the stalls and at the gates, but its like 2 inches deep and all I have to do is wipe the horses hooves off with a towel. So I think it just depends on how your property naturally drains water or something. I love the mild weather. I hate extreme heat, extreme cold, and snow. I don't mind the rain because I live within 10 minutes of the county fairgrounds and just ride in their indoor. Throughout the winter it pretty much just freezes at night but the daytime temps aren't too bad, like maybe 45 at the coldest. We get a lot of dry, cold, crisp days in the fall, which is my FAVORITE kind of weather. Spring is usually the wettest. Right now its dry and hot (80s). There's usually snow once a year for like a week but this year we didn't get any, but we aren't too far from the mountains so if you really were itching to play in the snow you could find some. I'm within an hour drive of multiple barrel races, including two that put on seasonal series (Rocky Top does a fall/spring series, Stewarts does a winter/summer series). I'm only a couple of hours from the big races in Pasco or down in Oregon. I have a couple of local vets within 45 minutes, but Pilchuck is 2 hours north of me and Oregon State is 4 hours south of me. Pilchuck is where I go for something I don't think the local vet could do (soreness/mysterious illness/etc) and OSU is for like big emergencies (we've had a colic surgery done there). And then Dr. Elliott at Emerald Downs is like an hour from me, thats who I usually use for injections, although a lot of people also use Dr Solomon who is based out of Oregon. I like where I'm at because my town is small but I'm not that far from Olympia (which has pretty much everything I would need for shopping and there's really very little traffic up there), and still not even that far from Tacoma and Seattle, or the beach, and then Portland, OR is only 2 hours south of me. For water we have a well. One of my best friends moved to Canby, OR though and she loves it. I like Oregon too but I've never lived there. My girlfriend lived in the Portland area last summer so I was there a lot and while the farm country on the outskirts was pretty I honestly hated it in that area, to live. I would go insane dealing with that traffic every day. There just isn't any traffic where I come fro, and a "traffic jam" in Olympia when everyone is off work lasts like 5 minutes. A view of our property (we have 125 acres): The river on our property: A trail by my house in the fall: Westport (about an hour away, its a cute little fishing town. Well I think its cute anyway haha) Sunset at Westport: Oh and there are a TON of "real" trails. I'm surrounded by the Capitol Forest, which has multiple campgrounds and parking lots for trail riding.