Day #58 – Flaming Tractor

Sarasota FL
 

Kelly really likes to play FarmVille.  It’s a simulation game we discovered about a month ago.  Like most video games, you complete tasks to earn points and rise through increasingly demanding levels.  And, like most video games, it never really ends.  She doesn’t win, lose, or die: she just keeps on farming.  To quote Wikkapdia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FarmVille), it “is a real-time farm simulation game developed by Zynga, available as an application on the social networking website Facebook. The game allows members of Facebook to manage a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting virtual crops, trees, and livestock.  Since its launch in June 2009, FarmVille has become the most popular game application on Facebook with 73.8 million active users in January 2010.” Make that 73,800,002. 

Kelly found out this morning that if she were to reach Level Ten in another game, Mafia Wars, she could buy a FarmVille tractor that plows nine plots at a time, is painted like a crazy hotrod, and shoots flames out its engine when it’s working.  You know she had to have it.  So, we sat around this morning while she figured out how to play Mafia Wars.  She died several times, but she got her tractor.  She was a bit disappointed that its horn sounded the same as her regular tractor horn.  Still, she looks damn fine plowing those fields.  Much sexier than she did on her first tractor, a cute little pink number.

After becoming the Queen of the Plow, we trooped off like a herd of turtles to get new ID cards from the Social Security Administration.  It will take up to two weeks for them to arrive.  These are necessary for transferring our driver licenses from Pennsylvania to Florida.

While out and about, we also made some returns (cha-ching!) and stopped by the local AAA office.  We switched our membership to Florida and picked up maps for the Florida panhandle.

Day #57- A Day on the Phone

Sarasota FL

After reviewing our massive to-do list, we realized that Florida residency was going to take the longest, so we tackled it first.  I started by calling the Good Sam’s mail service.  A wonderful woman, Tena, runs that office and explained the whole process to me.  As a result, I had a tidy list of sub-tasks and a new mailing address. 

A history side-note:  The Good Samaritan Club (Good Sam’s) started years and years ago, soon after automobiles became popular.  People tricked out their cars for camping and soon started loose networks for communication, support, and caravanning (travelling together).  One group became formalized as The Good Samaritan Club.  There’s a magazine that comes with membership, plus lots of related services such as camp ground discounts, travel planning, rallies, insurance and mail forwarding.  They also help with consumer problems.  We joined because we liked the idea helping others and putting a little life into the Golden Rule.

On with today’s story…My next step was to call our insurance company and get our vehicle policies switched from Pennsylvania to Florida.  It took a long time, but it was easy.  As a result, they will be sending us an invoice at our new address.  This will help prove we are Floridians.

Kelly called the bank to switch addresses.  Again, it took a very long time on the phone, but she was successful.  Getting all our bank-related “things” coordinated was difficult – every MAC, every account, etc. had to be changed individually.  You’d think with all the computer networks we have, one institution could change an address in one spot and have it change everywhere within that institution.  But noooo – Kelly had to go through each and every one.  Poor girl.  It was worth it though, because we now have another piece of mail with our new Florida address.

We also talked with Jim, our Money Guy, about truck issues.  We don’t have the option of buying a truck with cash – it would have too much impact on our future cash flow.  So, we would have to work a truck payment into our budget.  We weren’t surprised by that answer, but it was sobering nonetheless.

Day #56 – Unfinished Tasks

Sarasota FL

We’ve unpacked and caught up with laundry, planned some meals and done some shopping, returned some library books and found some new ones.  Our trailer is fixed and ready to go - it’s time to get serious about returning to the road.

We have many tasks that need to be completed before we can put rubber to the highway.  Many friends have asked us why we’re still here and it’s been difficult to explain.  Pat had some medical health issues that required us to stick around a while, but those were resolved today.

Here’s a short version of what needs to be done.  One task is related to our physical safety and the rest fall under the main goal of making our lives more simple and less physically cluttered.

1) Determine whether the truck can really tow our trailer and gear.  We’re kissing the limits on weight and we sure want to keep our transmission and axles in the Rockies.  I don’t want to tell any stories of what happened to us in the Donner Pass!  Addressing this issue involves determining whether we need a different truck, where the money would come from for a new vehicle, and how that will affect other decisions after we finish this trip.  Until we weighed our rig in Virginia, we thought we were OK.  Now we’re not so sure.

2) We want to become Florida residents.  There’s no real reason to keep our Pennsylvania residency and several reasons to switch it.  We own property in Florida now, and nowhere else, so it makes sense to become Florida residents.  Florida has no state income tax – that’s a biggie for me.  Florida vehicle insurance covers all windshield damage – no deductibles.  Florida currently has no vehicle inspection requirements.  In general, we think this is a bad idea, but in the short run it works to our advantage.  If our vehicles are registered in Florida, we avoid having to return to a “home state” for inspections while on the road.

3) We want to set up a secure storage area in the garage.  When Kelly was fixing up the Sarasota house, she moved some cupboards from the laundry room to the garage and modified them for storage.  They have to be scrubbed before we can move the tools and other items she accumulated over the summer into them.  We also have to install lock hardware to protect the contents until we move here permanently.

4) We want to sort through our belongings before we get back on the road.  Now that we’ve been travelling for a while, we know we have lots more stuff with us than we need.  We tried doing this de-cluttering task at a campground and it was just too hard.  It’s easier to store, give away, or throw away from this location than from a campground.

5) I’m due for my yearly diagnostic (rather than screening) mammogram.  Since we’re here, where I will be living in a year or so, it makes sense to get it here.  It’s also easier to find a high-quality facility, schedule, and handle logistics from here than on the road.

6) Misc. other stuff:
•    Get our bikes from the repair shop
•    Get an oil change
•    Get Kelly a haircut
•    Return many erroneously purchased items to their origins, in the hopes of getting some money back
•    Hem some pants
•    Make a curtain for the trailer
•    Write thank-you notes from way long ago (we’re so late, it’s shameful)
•    Finish up 2009 tax issues

7) We have not yet planned the next part of our journey.  We know we want to travel up the west coast of Florida, through the panhandle, and then continue westward along the Gulf coast.  But, we haven’t picked a route, found attractions, or investigated camping options.  We said we wanted to live without a plan, but some rudimentary ideas are necessary for pleasure.

We’re wondering whether there’s an informal pool about our departure date.  Linda nailed the last one.  Keep us posted on who gets this one right.

Day #54 – Silver Threads Conference

Sarasota FL

The Silver Threads conference was wonderful in so many ways.  Kelly and I took some time for us.  There were no knocks on our door or excessive phone calls.  There was no yelling or chaos.  We had some peace.  The workshops were interesting and many of them opened more communication between us.  We learned some new dance steps  and we ate some good food.  Kelly enjoyed being in a community of like-minded women. 

We said our good-byes to Jan and headed back to Sarasota.