Odds and Ends

We were thinking the other day how much our travels have all ready changed.  In our previous trips over all these years, even if we had 6 weeks, we'd still be on a schedule and be somewhat hurrying from place to place.  It has been a challenge to slow down and smell the coffee as they say.  Our first transition was to try to stay for a week, in order to get a weekly rate, often times much cheaper than the daily rate, but more to just take it easy and try not to cram 15 things into 2 days.  Now we find we will have been here in Montrose for a month!  This is the longest we have stayed anywhere other than in Atlanta while I was working and Florida while I was commuting.  It's funny because other than the 5er next to us, we've been here longer than anyone, so we are the ones who see all the other RV's coming in and leaving.  Quite different for us.

We have a couple more projects to accomplish.  Jan wants to get the old grout out of the tiled shower walls, and put in the new grout.  Shouldn't be too big a deal, as long as we can get the old grout out.  We have a couple more adventures we want to do in the area.  Take another bike ride or two before we leave.  Have some more excellent pizza at Pahgres.  I'm going to try to rotate the tires on the Jeep.  

Retirement is working out well so far.  It's been 2 months since my separation, and 5 months since I flew.  I am more relaxed than I've been in some time.  I knew I liked retirement when I did it the first time and now I can confirm I like it very much the second time around.  No more days off though.  Only having one car is pretty different for us.  Jan says she might as well get rid of her license since she never gets to drive anymore:)  It's true, the only time she drives is when she runs out to do an errand or grocery shopping when I don't go along.  But there has only been a time or two that we have wanted/needed another vehicle.  

I guess it just shows how old fashioned we are, but Jan and I were addicted to reading a newspaper.  We subscribed in Atlanta and also when we were in Florida.  We had a morning routine where we get up early, most of the time somewhere around 5:30am or so, get the paper, pour coffee, and read sitting in bed over two cups of coffee, then on with our day.  Now we have weaned off the paper, we still get up early, still have coffee, but now she sits with her iPad and I sit with the computer.  We catch up on the news, get some bills paid, and do some email.  We never thought we could do without our favorite comics in the morning, but we have.  I'm sure a lot of you figure we've just caught up to the rest of the world, but we'll still get a paper when we get to Florida!

When you full-time in a RV, you have the ability to pick any state you want for your residence.  Most people pick either South Dakota, Texas, or Florida.  None have state income tax.  As long as you meet the individual state residency requirements, all this is absolutely legal.  We are Florida residents, and have been since we started full-timing in 2004.  It worked out easiest for us, as we used my mom's address, and we spend a lot of time there anyway, so it was easy for us to get our licenses, registrations, and register to vote.  Since none of the states I've mentioned have income taxes, the other major considerations are registrations fees and renewal requirements, insurance costs, and mail forwarding.  My mom has been our mail forwarder for all this time, and has done a fabulous job!  But now my mom's health is failing, and the mail is becoming a burden that she shouldn't have to worry about.  So this is prompting us to reconsider our residency as we change our mail forwarding.  The most popular state for full-timers is probably Texas, there is a club there called the Escapees that caters to full-timers, has one of the best mail forwarding services in the world, and will handle all the requirements for residency in Texas.  The downsides for us are several; Texas sales tax is 7%, Texas requires a special license to drive a motorhome over 26,000 pounds, no problem for me as I have a CDL, but Jan would have to do a driving test to get her license, they also still have an inspection on vehicles, so anytime we hit Texas in a year, which we would since our daughter and her family live in Texas, we would have to get our motorhome and Jeep inspected.  PITA!  Now South Dakota is next in line and almost as popular as Texas (this is just my opinion and observation, nothing scientific).  SD has a very desirable 3% sales tax, no inspections, easy to meet residency requirements, competitive insurance rates, but maybe not such a good place to go in winter when you're called up for jury duty!  They also have several organizations that handle all the issues of making SD your state of residence and mail forwarding, although you have to go and spend at least one night in order to get everything done.  Florida, although having a 6% sales tax, and fairly high insurance rates, has low registration fees, no inspections, and our son lives there so we would be going there anyway.  We will do some more research into insurance costs and other details while we make our decision primarily about mail forwarding.  Any decision will require an address change.  All three states have excellent and affordable mail forwarding companies, it will be a interesting comparison between SD and Florida.  I'll let you know what we find out.

Another scenic loop

The weather has been great so we wanted to take another ride.  Years ago we stayed in Cimarron and really enjoyed exploring the area to its south.  Several John Wayne movies were shot in the area.  In fact we passed a couple places where some scenes in the original True Grit were filmed.  Pretty neat!
Our loop took us back down south to Ridgway then up over Owl Creek Pass at 10,114' then by Silver Jack Reservoir, up into Cimarron, and back to Montrose, about 150 miles including a side trip to High Mesa.
We packed a picnic lunch and a thermos of coffee and off we went.  The scenery is fantastic, I know you are probably tired of me saying that all the time, but it's true and it never fails to impress.

Along the way

Up over Owl Creek Pass and we began looking for somewhere to have our picnic lunch.  It's very hard to find a spot with any kind of a view :) but we kept at it until we found this little spot.  We wanted a place with a magnificent view, but decided to get by with this :)

Jan setting up

Me relaxing

This is a quick shot of Chimney Rock, one of the hundreds that are called that in the US, but this is the one in which the shoot out scene in True Grit was filmed beside.  It's kind of neat thinking the Duke was here looking at the same area.

Chimney Rock

We continued our ride and found this guy already getting ready for winter foraging for food to store away.  His mouth is full!

Mr Marmot

We walked around a bit enjoying perfect temperatures and no bugs, and just a gorgeous day.  Found another not so shabby place for coffee.

Coffee break spot

We drove up onto High Mesa, and realized we had been there with Ray and April years before.  It is a switchback road and when you come around the second switchback it looks like the side of the shelf road just disappears.  It was where I stopped previously when Ray and I felt uncomfortable.  We walked up the road and found out it wasn't too bad, so we got back in and continued to the top.  It was cool to rediscover a place we had already been.  As I've mentioned, this is monsoon season so the humidity is up some which impairs the views, especially in the afternoon, so this is the best we could do.

From the top of High Mesa

Gorgeous meadow

Another fantastic day!