ID:
Driving distance? For a rational person, a job in San Francisco is driveable from anywhere inside SF. For someone who doesn't value his spare time, I suppose you could commute from just about anywhere. It's bad, beyond your imagination, unless you experience it, and the social engineers of California will not build any more roads, because they want to force us out of our cars. That's reality, and your taxes will fund it.
Lucrative? I've seen how you can live in Boise if you spend $600K on a house (e.g. 4500 sq ft one-story on a hill with 5 acres and a view a few minutes from downtown). You can't BUY a house, any house, for that in SF. If you can live in SF like you can in Boise on an upper-middle-class salary, we'd have heard of you, because your name would be in People, the Wall Street Journal, and maybe Rolling Stone, fairly regularly. This offer better be pretty fat.
CCW? Don't make me laugh.
Forget the AK. You can't bring a 25-round magazine for your 10/22, an 11-rounder for a .40 cal, or a 15-round 9mm magazine. Not "can't buy", can't bring, can't own. Only if you owned the magazine in-state before 2000 can you keep it. Otherwise, you could be charged with a felony. You will be required to register each handgun you own when you move here.
Yeah, the Russian River is pretty, but no more so than 100 places in Idaho that will be deserted when you get there, unlike here, where damn near every pretty spot is packed. It's hard to explain that to someone from a large state with gorgeous scenery everywhere, and few people anywhere.
Be ready for higher taxes (sales tax where you are going is over 8%, and we have some of the highest state income taxes in the nation), and the limit we have on property taxes only allows you to grandfather your purchase price. If you buy a house at current prices, you will pay a lot of property tax, too -- or you can pay exorbitant rent and help someone else retire while you end up with nothing.
One more thing: when I go to Idaho from here, I notice something. People are REALLY NICE, and it's just how things are. They're not wierd nice, just polite. Don't expect that here, especially in the city, or anywhere near SF, LA, or the wealthy 'burbs of any of the three big cities in California. The assholiness alone is enough to drive some people out; I've moved to another part of this city, in part because of the general attitude of people in our old neighborhood. And I'm not overly-sensitive; I can get as aggro as the next guy. I just got damn tired of it.
The reason I'm here is that I surf. If you don't surf, there is no reason to move here. If your skills are in high demand, I'd take that as a cue to start looking around, not to move to SF.
Bottom line: if I had a good job or business in Idaho or somewhere similar, I'd already be there and I wouldn't come back here unless it were a short-term proposition with a HUGE payoff, after which I'd be gone again. And I live in San Diego, which is cheaper and far lower-stress than the urbanized Bay Area, by every measure.
There you go. Just to take the edge off the excitement of a higher salary. Think once, think twice, run a big-ass spreadsheet, then think again. California isn't the outdoorsy land of opportunity it was in the '60s. Idaho resembles the California of my youth a lot more than California does, or ever will again.
So what are the upsides?
1. The weather. Well, not in SF, but in San Diego. SF weather is nothing special; it just doesn't usually freeze. And the nearby valleys get hot as hell in the Summer.
2. Trader Joe's. We have Trader Joe's. A great thing.
3. Hard Liquor. It's cheaper, more widely sold and easier to find at odd hours than in Idaho. You can drink it when you get nostalgic for uncrowded hiking, good hunting without tag lotteries, nice people, 15-round pistol magazines, and fireworks.
Best of luck. May you make the right decisions.
