Thank Our Lucky Stars: New Driver’s Licenses

Days 3 and 4

December 28 & 29, 2015

We drove 486 miles from Rock Springs, Wyoming to Box Elder, South Dakota. It was dark and there was about three feet of snow on the ground when we arrived, but other than the occasional siting of antelope and stunningly beautiful scenery the drive was blissfully uneventful!

Look Close. A herd of Antelope at the top!

The puppies even seemed to be getting used to the cold and could pee without much trouble.

They're not sure about all this white stuff!

Larry did notice the gas mileage wasn’t as good as it had been but we could figure that out later.

We’d done our research about being nomads in the months leading up to our retirement. We learned about domicile states and taxes and mail forwarding services. We decided America’s Mailbox in Box Elder would work well for us. SD is very accommodating toward full time RVers. There is no state income tax and vehicle registration is relatively inexpensive and easy. All you have to do is spend 1 night, bring your hotel or RV Park receipt and a few forms of ID to the DMV and you can get a SD Driver’s License. We could register to vote and become SD residences!

We used to take road trips with our kids and we always played the state license plate game. I always thought it strange that so many people were from South Dakota. Now I know, most of them weren’t. They were retirees domiciled in SD. Since learning this we now ask people. We’ve met lots of RVers with SD license plates but only 1 couple that were actually from “The Mount Rushmore State.”

We got a good night’s sleep and woke up bright and early the next morning to be first in line at the DMV. Unlike the California DMV you can’t get an appointment. There was one woman ahead of us. The clerk not helping her took Larry’s paperwork while I waited behind the woman. She finished. My turn! I gave him my paperwork, he checked it over, took a picture of me looking way too excited and silly and voila, I got my new driver's license and became a SD voter! So easy! I turned around expecting Larry to be waiting for me and saw him, still in line, looking through the folder of papers we brought. I'd triple checked to make sure I brought everything we needed so I was surprised at the hold up. Turns out the Social Security Card he’d been given...as a teenager, wasn’t valid. They called it a stub. Having changed my name when we got married I had a new, up to date card. They couldn’t issue his license until he got one more kind of ID. A pay stub with his complete SS# on it would work. Nope, didn't have one of those. Anything from the IRS? Nope, those records all have the last 4 numbers, not the whole thing. We could get a new Social Security card...but that would take weeks... to come by mail...back in California. I was beginning to panic. We did not just drive 1,365 miles to NOT get his new driver's license did we?

"Don't panic, we'll figure this out." The very nice clerk was encouraging. "There's an IRS office in Rapid City. They should be able to issue you something."

He made a call. "Yup, they said head over there and they'll issue you a paper."

We went to the IRS office and found out we had to make an appointment to be seen. Luckily they had 1 appointment available for that day. It was in an hour but the clerk who made the appointment for us told us we were the guy's first appointment of the day and he was pretty sure he was in so if we went up there we’d probably be seen right away. We went. Larry checked in and sure enough the guy was there and didn’t have anyone with him. Larry approached him with a hopeful smile on his face. He gave him the appointment paper, explained who he was and what we needed.

With a deadpan expression the guy said, “Your appointment isn’t for an hour.”

Still smiling Larry said, “I know, but the guy at the front desk said to come up here and see if you would see me right away.”

Deadpan guy, “Your appointment isn’t for an hour."

He stood there and stared at us.

"You can sit there until your appointment.”

He pointed at a small empty room with some chairs behind a half wall.

We sat. We waited. My phone rang.

I answered it and in a low voice (don’t laugh, it WAS a low voice, Larry even said so) I chatted for a minute. Deadpan comes out and says, “You can’t talk in here, you'll disturb people.” Like death holding up a boney finger, he pointed to the door. Remember this was an EMPTY room!

I walked out to the hallway, dropped all my crap on the floor as loudly as possible, kind of on accident but not really and sat. This guy was starting to diminish my good mood. I finished my conversation but before I got up I realized I had a much better vantage point of his office from there. I saw why he couldn’t take us right away. He was extremely busy, getting coffee, putting his feet up on his desk and reading the morning paper!

At exactly 11:00 AM, our appointment time, Deadpan walks into the room and calls, "Mr. Jensen. Mr. Larry Jensen."

I looked around. Other than us, the room was still empty. I got up to go with Larry. Deadpan says, “You wait here.” What a pleasant man.

It took all of 5 minutes.

We took the paper he'd printed back to the DMV.

Of course, this time the place was packed! The good news, it was South Dakota, not California. Packed means something entirely different in SD! We waited about half an hour and were out, new SD Driver’s License in hand!

We took a selfie in the parking lot to celebrate our new licensees!

Some teenage boys walking by laughed. “Is that a selfie stick?” One of them asked. “Cool!” Another one said.

Larry was embarrassed. He said they were making fun of us. I didn’t care if they were or not. I like my neon pink selfie stick!

I wanted to post the picture on our blog but realized the numbers were very easy to read. Not wanting that much info on us out there in cyberspace, I asked our daughter Kelly, who’s pretty good at photo manipulation, if she could blur out the numbers for us. She noticed her dad was holding his upside down so she asked me if I wanted it turned right in the picture. I said, “Wow, I didn’t know you could do that! Sure, go ahead.”

As you can see by the results, Kelly has a sense of humor!