Friday, September 28, 2012


Well, it’s been a long and expensive day today, but we are now officially Texans.

We both took turns this morning running around on the scooter to see the whole facility here at Rainbow’s End – it’s huge.  I’m looking forward to the tour on Tuesday to see all of it and learn more about what they do here.

First we had to wait until 1:00 for the mail delivery to see if my Wisconsin Driver’s license arrived with the motorcycle endorsement on it.  It was in our mail batch and we headed off on our journey with every conceivable document in hand.

For the vehicle inspection we need to unhook everything so all three vehicles were separate.  Then we had to show proof of insurance with the Declarations of Insurance for each vehicle, and a driver’s license.  This cost was $46.50 for the three pieces of paper that we needed to proceed to the next step.  No credit cards accepted – check or cash only.

The next step was to register our vehicles and get Texas license plates.  For this we needed to show proof of insurance again as well as the titles to the vehicles and the driver’s licenses, as well as completing the necessary forms, or course.  This went pretty smoothly and after a while we had our new license plates in hand.  Then we filled out the next set of forms to register to vote.  The cost to register the three vehicles was $585.25.  No credit cards accepted – check or cash only.

Back into the car and down the road a mile to the Driver’s License office.  To anyone back home complaining about visiting the La Crosse DMV – you ain’t seen nuttin’ yet!  This office is a small two room facility with two people behind the counter doing it all.  There are small wooden school chairs with the side desk area to do the paperwork and two computer stations for taking the written tests.

There is no number system, you pick up the forms, fill them out and stand in a line to assure your proper place.  The vision test is performed right there as well as capturing your thumbprints.  After the paperwork is done you pay up and have your photo taken right there.  My cost was $40 and Left Brain’s was $76 as he has a commercial driver’s license.  No credit cards accepted – cash or check only. This took about an hour to complete.

We did a Texas high five in the parking lot and headed off to Wal-Mart for groceries as Texans.  It felt good to get home and into the air conditioned comfort of our RV. 

Tomorrow he’ll put the license plates on all the vehicles and we’ll blend right in.  Now I just need to find one of those t-shirts that say “Don’t Mess with Texas”.  I was hoping they’d give us one after completing all this, but I guess you need to buy your own.  Maybe a nice cowboy hat and some boots later on too.  It’s too hot to wear them right now anyway.

Tonight is the excitement of going through all the mail – mostly bills and junk, but it’s still fun when you only get it once a month.

Long Live the Queen of Texas, ya’ll

1 comment:

  1. Do you have to do this in every state you set up in? Or are the new plates and all the registering, etc, all because your mail address is in Texas? Can you park in other states with your Texas plates? Gosh, so many things to learn and do. I think I'll keep my old house. You have a great night, hugs, Edna B.

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