anyone in great falls mt ?

[milkmommie]

It seems like this would be a really affordable choice for my family. We're looking to relocate to MT. Anyone who lives there have any input on livng in Great Falls?
TIA

[hollycat]

hi milk mommie -
i know great falls fairly well. i dont know what you are looking for specifically, but in many ways, montana is fairly conservative, with pockets of more crunchy or liberal sprinkled about. missoula and bozeman have the crunchiest populations by far, but great falls, billings, kallispell have theirs as well.

great falls is an old fashioned town with some great old housing stock in town, old craftsman homes and what not, and some very sweet cultural aspects. paris gibson square and gallery 16 house a lot of the local art scene, there are some great jazz musicans working there and a nice little symphony.

living out of town is nice too. the missouri and sun rivers run through town, a lot of summer recreation takes place on teh river. good skiing is an hour and a half away. it doesnt have the high drama of the cities in teh mountains - great falls is in the foothills - but has its own very magical beauty.

i dont know if youre conservative, but there definately is a rural cowboy culture, but as i said, a real crunchy, alternative healing and what not culture as well. i dont know what you do for a living, but unemployment in montana as a whole is fairly low. other cities are booming more than great falls, but are more expensive as well. please feel free to ask other questions.

[milkmommie]

Thanks for your responses. It was worrying me that I wasn't hearing much from anyone. :
This is so tough because I don't think we can afford to visit anywhere before moving. It's going to have to be a blind leap.
Missoula doesn't sound so great for being gray so much of the year. That might not work for me. My only real concern with Bozeman is the cost of living. We visited there once a few years back and really liked it. I have a cousin there and my BFF just moved there. Great FAlls is still close enough to visit Bozeman though. Great FAlls sounds like another little town we lived in in NM that I loved. A mix of old school cowboy culture and a cool artsy, natural crunchy kind of community.
My DH is a large equipment mechanic. Anywhere there's a CAT dealer, he can get a job. Big Diggers are his specialty and thankfully, that's not hard to find. He's also considering looking into teaching at a technical school somewhere as his body is starting to give out from years of hard work.
My biggest concern is that where we live now is filled with conservative right wingers. We just don't fit in. For the most part there isn't anyone I run into that doesn't kind of squint and look at me funny for the way we live and raise our kids. I know you can't neccessarily get away from that but I'd like to live somewhere where it's not EVERYONE.
Oh, and we homeschool so I need an active hsers group and good stuff to do with the kids.

[hollycat]

ahhh, well, there arent big homeschool communities in any of those places. have you considered washington state, colorado, northern california?

[Momsteader]

As a homeschooler in Helena....I'd say that there is a great group here as well as Great Falls. We meet up for some wonderful unschooling leaning fun several times a year with them. Lots of people hs'ing for non-religious reasons Maybe not dozens of families like other places, but still a fun group with weekly activies.

Have you made your choice yet?