Wandering America
We're Texans
| Heading for Texas It's hard to say what goes through one's mind, but we decided to leave Nashville, Tennessee and drive to Livingston, Texas in two days. Now before we retired this would have been the travel mode but it is clear that we need to reprogram our thought process. This would require back to back driving days of 5 and 1/2 hours each which makes for a grumpy driver. It must have been those type "A" personalities of ours that forced us to make this decision. Anyway, we are members of Passport America and Cloud Nine is a member campground located in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Now if we had used our heads we would have spent some time in this area. The drive from I-40 to the campground was very pretty. There was a curvy road with a climb up the mountain side to get to the campground but they had very nice facilities and level sites with great views. Plus it would have been just wonderful to seek out one of the hot springs to just "sit and soak". Maybe next time when we get our heads screwed on right.    Escapees Rainbow's End Well, there it is, Rainbow's End - we're home at last!!! Last July we established our Escapees mailing address and live on 
Rainbow Drive in Livingston, Texas with thousands of other fulltime
RVers. The campground is separated into the old and
the new sections. "If you want WIFI then you'll need to be in the
new section" said our volunteer host. Being that we live and die
by the internet we chose the new section. We were registered in,
received our Escapees hug, and were on our way to "set up camp" (if you
can call this camping). "Let's go for a walk around the park." Rainbow's End wasn't exactly as we pictured it in our minds. The park had far more deeded lots than we had imagined. After scouting the park for awhile we decided that we would have liked the old section better especially the sites between the Care Facility and the Club House but no WIFI - trade offs can be annoying but we had a nice site and were satisfied. Rainbow's End is very nicely done and is a place that we could live in once we retire - oh yes, we are retired - so when we grow up!!!! While we were there we did the tour of the Support Center and the Care Facility which gave us a better understanding of the current and future benefits of our Escapees Membership. We won't bore you with the details here but you can search their website at Escapees.com. The purpose of this trip was to become Texas residents so we spent a couple of days taking all of the necessary steps required to accomplish that mission. We had to "break camp" and take the truck and the coach in for a physical exam called an inspection. Once that was accomplished a trip to "City Hall" was required to get the vehicles registered and part with some money. Next it was off to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get our mug shots taken for our driver's licenses. A word of caution here, when they issue you your temporary paper license with no picture they keep your old one (the one with a picture that you will need to cash checks, open your bank accounts, etc.). When we went to the bank to open new accounts they required pictured Id's, ones that we no longer had. So guess what? We were unable to open new accounts. Being that we "rushed" to Texas and then spent two days establishing our residency we decided to just "veg out" in the park for the next couple of days. So we relaxed and did some walking (hand in hand, of course) and biking throughout the park. We had planned to travel back to Nashville through Arkansas but as we were sitting back relaxing and reflecting a new plan was hatched. We will travel along the Gulf spending time in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama before returning to Nashville. The freedom to change plans on a moments notice is one of the greatest benefits of this fulltime RVing lifestyle. |