Monday, September 5, 2011

We're Texans


We had a very nice and productive stay in Texas.  Escapees is a great organization for full time RVers.  They have a super mail forwarding service and are very helpful to those becoming Texans.  We decided to become Texans when Michigan recently chose to tax pensions.  As full time RVers we can basically chose any State to be our domicile, so why would we choose one that wants to tax pensions and motor homes?  Texas is very good in those regards.

We first had our motor home and “toad” inspected per Texas regulations.  Then we went for Texas titles and registrations.  Texas requires drivers of motor homes the size of ours to have a Class B license.  We had to take written driving exams made up primarily of commercial vehicle questions.  Then, we had to take driving tests in the motor home.  Gary has a lot of motor home miles under his belt, but I only drove the Southwind once and that thing was a bread truck that wandered all over the road and I never drove it again.  I had driven the Country Coach around in a parking lot but never on the road.  But we were here to get proper licenses and I needed to be able to drive at least in an emergency situation so I had to step up.  I watched some internet videos that were helpful and then I drove it around the roads of the campground.  And then I took it out on the road.  I drove about 40 miles by the time we arrived at the DMV for our driving tests.  Gary went first, but they wouldn’t let me ride along during his test as I had planned.  After he passed his exam, I took the wheel and made it happen.  Yay, I passed my driving test in a huge motor home!  Gary recorded our official Texas domicile with this mug shot.  No he is not holding his prison number, that is one of our license plates.  As I wouldn’t let him actually buy a cowboy hat as there is no room for it in the motor home, we just “borrowed” one at the Walmart for the picture.



We took some time and actually relaxed for a change.  We did our near daily water aerobics in the pool in the up to 105 degree heat.  But we did receive some much needed rain in the area from Tropical Storm Lee.    We sampled the local fare of restaurants and shops.  The picture below tells you how you know you are in a restaurant in Texas.


Off to Arkansas.

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