2/20/07 Our First Step to Being Texans

Today we took the first step to becoming Texans. Yep, you read that right, Bob and I will be making our legal home Texas. There are several reasons for this, one being that we don't have to get our vehicles inspected UNLESS we go back to Texas. Let me explain. When we leave Florida we'll take a leisurely paced trip to Texas to get driver's licenses, vehicle tags, and voter's registration cards that will for all intents and purposes declare us residents of Texas. Their driver's licenses are good for 6 years and since Texas "understands" full timing in RV's we will not be required to have our vehicles inspected unless we return to Texas. Every year or two we will renew our registration via snail mail. Of course in 6 years we will have to return there to renew our driver's licenses.

Another advantage is there is NO state income tax! Now how cool is that? While workamping in other states we will make so little that with our deductions we won't owe anything in state income taxes.

So today we made a trip to the bank to get our paperwork notarized, copies made and then mailed off all the information to Escapees, a huge organization for full timers, to set up our mailing address. We know our street name is Rainbow Drive and we'll get the number in about a week. All of our mail will go there and they'll forward it to us on a set schedule if we are stationary for awhile or on a demand basis if we are moving around. Now with the house sold and no household bills we won't really get all that much mail anyway. We've also had some things changed from paper mail to electronic mail. Hopefully we saved a tree!

Spring arrived in our section of Florida today! We creeped into the low 70's today and the weatherman says we'll hit the 80's by Friday. He also assured us that the cold weather is behind us and its clear sailing from here on out.

This afternoon Bob worked on polishing the rig again, its almost done now, and I did our laundry and worked on a new 1500 piece puzzle me and the puzzle pals are doing. This kept us busy until the bell rang for Happy Hour.