Domicile Changes, Quick Road Trip, and Farewell to the Tetons

Jackson, WY (46 degrees, below freezing at night)

Devils Tower

Our mail service in Sioux Falls, South Dakota - Dakota Post (formerly Alternative Resources) recently announced they were moving to a new office building which would require us to have to change our address.  They are adding a scan service which will email a picture of the front of your received mail envelope allowing you to choose to  forward or destroy each piece prior to forwarding it to you.  In addition, they are now the mail service for FMCA (Family Motor Coach Association) and for a variety of reasons need a bigger building  It's a huge inconvenience to us to have to change our address and there have been no offers of any kind by this mail service to compensate you for this inconvenience.  I'm not sure the scan service is all that important to us since we don't receive very much snail mail anymore.  

I started to  research changing our residency to Florida since we will be visiting this state more frequently than South Dakota  In the process of this research I read it is no longer required to return to South Dakota every five years to renew your drivers license. We've always been able to register to vote and obtained our vehicles license plates by mail after our initial visit. This recent change now allows you to renew your drivers license once by mail therefore only having return to South Dakota every 10 years. Sounded like a great idea, however, there is a catch.  You have to spend one night in a hotel or campground within the year of  renewing your license.  This receipt has to be less than one year old.

We talked about our upcoming plans for travel and it looked like our current location was our best and least expensive time to secure the one night stay in South Dakota.  The closest city with a  hotel from Jackson Wyoming was Hot Springs South Dakota and so without much time to plan we took off for the weekend.  It was one long road trip (over 1100 miles roundtrip) but we now have the receipt to use next spring for the renewal.

Residency requirements for states change frequently and many South Dakota full time RVers had to change to another state after Obama care went into effect. If this is your option for  medical insurance you are  required to live in the state for at least 10 months and this really is not an option for a full time RVer. We have Federal insurance which does not have this requirement and allows us to seek medical care wherever we are at the time.  

Deciding which state to call your domicile as a full timer requires a lot of research and what fits for one RVer may not work for you.  There is more to consider than just whether or not a state has income tax.  Somehow I missed this recent change in driver license renewals in South Dakota, so be sure to check often and watch forums, blogs, and state websites for the current information.

The cost of changing our residency to Florida would be more expensive in the long run. Our motorhome insurance would increase by $300 a year and licensing our car and motorhome is slightly more expensive. We would also have change to a Florida mail service because I think it's important to be able to have a good defense if your residency is ever challenged.  Claiming you are a full time resident with an out of state mail service in my opinion could be problematic.  Trying to coordinate license plates and registration take a lot of planning as well to avoid a big cost in the overlapping of dates.  

We did detour out of our way to visit Devils Tower National Monument.  It was an interesting place to visit and is considered sacred by many Indian tribes.  We saw four groups of climbers ascending the 867 foot tower.  A ranger we spoke with said there were more injuries from folks hiking around the monument rather than climbing it.  They average about five climber rescues year mostly due to climbing ropes getting stuck.  Working in a National Park this year has made us more aware of rescues and injuries  which occur each year. It really was not something we were very aware of until this season.  The Jenny Lake Rangers in the Grand Teton National Park were very busy this season rescuing climbers and there were several deaths and severe injuries.  We have great respect for the men and women who help out and risk their own lives in the process.  

The Devils Tower was named by explorer but the Indians named it Bear Lodge. The folklore around this name can be read here .

Back in Jackson you might notice there is SNOW on the mountains.  It sure is beautiful to see but also makes us realize it's time to go.  

Our last week with Grand Teton Association went by very quickly. It was very difficult to say good bye to the full time staff  and the friends we have made while living in the area.  It's been such a great experience and by far our favorite workamping job.  

GTA Luncheon

There were several good bye lunches and dinners and we really feel blessed by all the friendships we have made.  We will certainly return here again in the future and a long list of "wanna do" hikes and kayak trips is already being compiled.   We would highly recommend GTA to others workampers who might be looking for summer/fall employment for 2015.  

We will soon be on our way back to Florida but a few side trip are planned.  Be sure to check back soon.