Preparations

Brrr.  It’s COLD in South Dakota.  So glad to be heading back to “warm” Colorado, even as the ski resorts in our neighborhood closed this week due to too much snow.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  As soon as the holiday festivities were over we started making progress toward our preparation for moving into the RV… Scanning, selling, and most importantly deciding where to  establish residency.

Since we don’t own property and are not going to be full time in any location, we can choose our state of residency.  Some states have stricter requirements, other states have better or worse tax advantages.  Health insurance is another consideration although thankfully not a concern of ours.  After the research (and guidance from the blogs I’m reading most regularly like heathandalyssa.com and technomadia.com) it came down to South Dakota, Texas, or Florida.  Well, Florida is just too far away, Texas has a bit stricter requirements, it seemed like South Dakota was the obvious choice.

Many states have mail services, but  South Dakota has three we considered.  Primarily, I was interested in a service that scans the envelopes, then you get to log in, decide on a case by case basis if they should forward, shred, or scan and email the item to you.  That brought our options down to 2 in the state.  We settled on America’s Mailbox, because Rapid City is closer, and more likely for us to visit than Sioux Falls.  So, we have a new address.  Please note:

(Although our Colorado address will still be good until we are into the RV full time in May.)

Step 2:. This week we drove up to Rapid City.  We came up  Monday, to do business on Tuesday, and go home again Wednesday.  From our house in Colorado it is a 7.5 hour drive.  The weather was not cooperating, but we just needed to get it done, so Monday early we headed out.

We got to Rapid City early enough to stop by the mailbox place, finalize our account there, and talk to an insurance rep.  We found out that unlike Colorado, we don’t need insurance before we register, so good news, we can shop around a bit more for up to 30 days before we buy insurance.  And we STILL had enough time to open a bank account on Monday.  Check, check, check.

Tuesday morning, after attending to some IBM work from the hotel room, we headed out to the DMV.  In a surprisingly efficient process, an hour later we had SD driver’s licenses.

Next we went over to the county building to register the RV.  There was a slight hiccup as they thought the previous title was issued without a conjunction (and or or) between the owners names and we thought we were not going to be able to get it done today… especially since the seller’s husband is dead.  But it turned out to be an overlook on the title and it did say “or” so.. Phew, could get we done.  Check, check.  (Note to self… Always register cars, get loans etc, using Mike OR Phyllis to facilitate selling later, when one party may be absent for any reason.)

We had planned to register our two cars in SD, even though we plan to sell one. But both registrations are due soon, and we don’t want to re-register in Colorado.  We were not excited to find out that you have to pay sales tax on any vehicle you register in SD, regardless of when you bought it.  You pay 4%, less and sales tax you already paid, if you can prove that.  Well.. Of course we weren’t prepared to provide proof of the tax that we paid on the cars, 1 and 4 years ago.  So we did not check that box.  With that fact in mind, we have decided to get busy and sell the BMW before we have to reregister.  So all is good.

After all the chores were done, we still had time to catch a showing of  “Rogue One”.  And now we are on our way home, residents of South Dakota.

In the meantime, I’ve been working hard scanning stuff.  I’ve scanned all my slides (and threw them away.. Yeichs!), Burned the DVD’s to hard drive and gotten rid of the DVDs.  I’m in the process of scanning the photo albums, and any loose photos I have.  I have scanned all news clippings that I’ve saved over the years, photographed the artwork I had saved from my youth (can’t believe I’ve saved some of this stuff).  Although all these things do not take much room… I feel lighter already. We are also listing furniture, etc. on Craigslist, eBay, Facebook, and OfferUp.com.  Next weekend my sister, brother-in-law, and I, am heading to Albuquerque to help my parents move across town.  (Mike has to stay home to work).  I’m taking the trailer filled with furniture and item to give, or store at my families houses.   So we are making visible progress.

Yesterday walking into the movie theater,  Mike commented “Never in a million years would I have believed I would be a SD driver’s license holder.”  Well you know I would say, “Never say never!”

FOOTNOTE:  On the drive to Albuquerque, David (Monica’s husband) says to me, “So, are you going to leave the trailer in Albuquerque?”.. I said, “Well, coincidentally Mike told me jokingly as I was walking out the door this morning that if I found a buyer, I should sell it… But not sure how I could connect with a buyer.”  Monica pipes up from the back seat and says, “Let’s list it on Craigslist.”  She proceeded to email Mike to get a description, pulled the photo off of this blog, listed it, and an hour later just as we were pulling into town had it sold.  Wow!!  Teamwork.