Disney after Dark!

Posted on February 10, 2015 by liv2rv

After a busy first day at Epcot, Dan and I took the complimentary shuttle boat ride from Fort Wilderness to the Magic Kingdom for the evening. Karen and Al, along with his cousin Bill, would be taking a later boat over and joining us for the parade and fireworks. This would be our first visit to the Magic Kingdom. And needless to say, we were immediately lost without our tour guides!

boat ride from campground

Upon arriving on the grounds, we had no idea what to see or do, and actually had to get a map! We promptly texted our ‘tour guides’ to see when they would be arriving, and they were on the next boat over…whew! Even though it was only 6:30, people were already lined up for the 8:00pm Main Street Electrical parade, making it difficult to wander through the crowds to see anything.

We quickly became overwhelmed as we had no idea what to see or do, so we found refuge in a gift store and waited for the rest of our party. When you live in an RV, it’s easy to avoid buying souvenirs, as we have very limited space. But it’s always fun to look, and Disney seems to excel in merchandising. You will see I am wearing neon mouse ears in the photo below. These were a gift from a former co-worker, Katie, from her honeymoon in Disney! She was happy to know they made “the cut” when it came to deciding what to pack in the RV! Thanks again Katie!

Disney after Dark

Karen, Al and Bill quickly found us in the gift shop, and then we headed out into the park and they gave us a quick explanation of the six different themed areas of the park. Since we would be returning to the Magic Kingdom on Wednesday, this gave us a brief overview of the areas we needed to see during the day.

Cinderella’s Castle

We wandered around the Main Street, USA area for a while, taking in all the sights and sounds before heading over for coffee and dole whips (a fresh pineapple dessert). Then we headed to Adventureland to stake out our parade route. There was nobody there before parade. We thanked our excellent tour guides for again leading us in the right direction…away from the crowds. No sense standing 10 deep in line at the Main Street area, when we can have our own personal space in another area. Once it was close to the 8 pm start time, the area quickly filled up, but we had our front row spots.

The Main Street Electrical Parade is a 20 minute parade of floats and characters covered in LED lights, with music playing across the parks loudspeakers. I love parades, and this was very enjoyable, and a must see item at the park. Tinkerbell leads off the parade.

Tinkerbell

beautiful floats

let the Magic begin

Alice in Wonderland…not sure why she is on a mushroom. Someday I will see that movie!

Alice in Wonderland

magic mushrooms?

ladybugs and butterfly

Lot’s of Disney characters were in the parade, so it was fun for me to try to figure who they were. Some were obvious.

Pinocchio

I thought this was Puff, but Karen told me this is Pete the Dragon!

Pete the Dragon

Captain Hook & Peter Pan

Cinderella

Fairy Godmother

Behind Cinderella’s pumpkin coach, was a float with Prince Charming, hanging out with her step-sisters, who were having a lot of fun.

Prince & step-sisters

They were followed by his majesty’s court, and the clock turning midnight.

midnight?!

Snow White was roaming around the crowd.

Snow White

Followed by the dwarfs.

can you name them?

The last float in the parade was a patriotic tribute to the United States, complete with bursting “fireworks” and a bald Eagle.

final float

a very long float

After the parade, we headed over to the main street area to watch the fireworks, formally known as Wishes nighttime spectacular. I was expecting a basic fireworks show, but this was an excellent light show displayed on Cinderella’s Castle, with an appearance by a flying Tinkerbell followed by fireworks. No matter how tired you may be after a day at Disney, this is well worth staying for. The castle is constantly changing colors during the show. It’s hard to take photos of fireworks, so these are the best I could get from the show.

Wish Upon a Star

It was a great way to end a long, busy day seeing two of the four parks. And it was just day one!! Stay tuned for more of our busy Disney week.

Quote for the day: “There is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” – Winnie the Pooh

Walt Disney World!!

Posted on February 8, 2015 by liv2rv

welcome!

Although it has been a few weeks since last posting, I will be making up for that absence with a bunch of posts on our stay at Fort Wilderness Campground, on the grounds of The Magic Kingdom. After our first day, I had good intentions of putting a post out right away, but with so many photos and videos to sort through, plus being tired from playing tourist for 12 hours, I figured it would be best to wait until our “vacation” was over, and then work on the blog posts.

And yes, I am calling it a vacation. Many of you may think we are on a permanent vacation, but the reality is we still need to work. Our ‘house’ just has wheels and a changing view! But for this week, we went into ‘vacation’ mode. If you enjoy Disney, then hopefully you will also enjoy the next several blogs, as they will be all about Disney. If you are one of the few that can’t stand the big mouse, well……!

But first a little background. Last year we were invited to Disney by our friends Karen and Al, whom we had met at Amazon. Neither Dan nor I have ever visited any of the four parks at Disneyworld. And when it comes to Disney characters, I am pretty clueless. Karen and Al have been visiting Disney for years, and are very knowledgeable about the entire complex. We hooked up with them last year for one day at Epcot, just to get a feel of Disney. You can read about last years blog on Epcot here, as well as my blog on Disney history and pricing here. We had a great time last year, and decided to come back for a longer stay this year, so we could see all four parks.

Our opinion that Disney is still very expensive has not changed, and they just reported on the local news that Disney recorded record attendance and profits in their last quarter. So Disney can continue raising prices, and it does not appear to have any affect, so far, on their attendance. But since we changed our residency to Florida, we can now get a resident pass. For $233.00 (which includes tax), we can visit any of the four main parks, Monday thru Friday, most of the year. Holidays, summer months, and the weekends are blocked out. And we can go to more than one park in a day.

This year, we did stay at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort, which is both the nicest, and the most expensive campground we have stayed at. We paid $82.00 per night (plus tax) for a premier site. They do not offer any discounts, weekly or monthly rates. And their pricing varies depending on the season (we stayed during the cheaper “off-season”). But they do allow up to 10 people per site, without an extra charge, and we did see a few sites that had both an RV and a tent (which is permitted), so if you come down with a few families, it is not a bad deal. And it does include a parking pass (which would cost $17.00 per day if not staying on the grounds). They also offer a boat shuttle to the Magic Kingdom, as well as a shuttle bus to all the other parks and Downtown Disney. We were able to link our reservations with Karen and Al, so we were all in the same loop (they have family and friends that also visit every year, and we joined in with the group).

Welcome to Epcot

Our first day was spent back at Epcot, on a much more relaxed pace than last year, when we were trying to see and do as much as possible! When you stay at any Disney hotel, you will receive complimentary FastPass bands, which allow you to make advance reservations for up to three rides/attractions at each park. This will allow you to avoid long waiting lines on the more popular rides. Last year we did the ‘green’ option on the popular Mission Space ride, which simulates a rocket launch and spacecraft flight. This year, we opted to try the more intense ‘orange’ ride. This one made my stomach a bit queasy, but it was not too bad, since we were familiar with the ride from last year. When it was over, I did notice several people getting off and sitting down right away on benches, holding the complimentary “space bag” that is on the ride. I would recommend not doing this ride right after eating!

After that, we toured the Journey Into Imagination, with Figment, before our next FastPass, Turtle Talk with Crush. This was an interactive, animated story telling with Crush The Turtle that is geared towards children, but is fun for adults as well. It appears that you are watching an animated movie, but the character does interact and talk with the audience.

You can tell when you are close to more kid friendly attractions, when you run into the designated stroller parking areas!

lots of strollers

Dan and I originally set up our FastPass to include Captain EO, but Al stated there is never a long wait for this, so we did not have to waste one of our three options on this. Captain EO was originally made for Disney in 1986, and was discontinued several years ago. But after the death of Michael Jackson, Disney brought back this 18 minute 3D film. It was interesting to see how much 3D technology has changed since this was made. What was state of the art back then, just seems a little ‘ho hum’ now.

With the FastPass option at Epcot, Disney only let’s you select one of the two biggest rides. You can choose either Soaring, or Test Track, but not both. Last year we went on Soaring, which was excellent. This year we opted for Test Track, which was also a lot of fun. You design a car, and then take it for a ride along a test track to see how it performs on turns, speed and under adverse conditions.

Test Track entrance

Both would be great choices, and both have long ‘stand by’ wait times. Your best bet would be to get to the park right away and stand in one of the lines, and have a FastPass for the other later in the day.

where’s Nemo?

All these rides made us hungry, so we headed over to the World Showcase portion of Epcot for a late lunch. Al had made reservations in Italy, at Via Napoli Ristorante e Pizzeria, where we sampled several different wood-fired pizzas.

We then headed over to France, for some excellent desert at Les Halles Boulangerie & Patisserie. We stopped there last year, and it was so good, and reasonably priced, that I wanted to stop there again this year. We burned a few calories walking around the rest of the world, and then headed back to the campground to let the dogs out.

Epcot World Showcase

Since I took so many pictures last year at Epcot, I do not have a lot of photos from Epcot this year, but I did manage on finding a few more characters. This year I did a little better in guessing who they were!

Mary Poppins

Do you know how to tell these two apart?

Chip and Dale

Chip has a brown nose, and Dale has the red one. Learned something new at Epcot!

After feeding Makena, Dan and I took the free shuttle boat ride from our campground to the Magic Kingdom, to watch the evening parade and fireworks. Since this blog is already pretty long, and I took a lot of photos in the evening, that will be the topic of my next blog.

Quote for the day: “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney

Florida RV Supershow

Posted on January 23, 2015 by liv2rv

Every January, the biggest RV show in the country takes place at the Florida state fairgrounds in Tampa. We have heard a lot of good things about the Florida RV Supershow, and decided to check it out last week. Everyone we talked to said it is too big to see everything in one day, and they were correct. We spent 2 days at the show, and still did not see everything that was there. They had RV’s of every shape and size, from $4,000 trailers to a $3 million dollar custom coach.

We also ran into Kristen and Jason (Snowmads), whom we first met last January in Cedar Key, FL. They have sold their Airstream trailer and will be venturing out in a new Trek motorhome, which was on display at the show. They travel with three dogs that were happy to great all visitors at the show!

Kristen and Jason

Trek motorhome

We also ran into a number of co-workers from Amazon, and had a nice lunch with everyone. Then all of us went over to one of the exhibitor buildings, to say ‘hi’ to the human resource personnel for Amazon that handle the Camperforce program. Kelly, in the purple shirt below, was our HR rep that came with us up to Jeffersonville, IN last December.

Kelly and gang

Across from the Amazon booth, was a booth selling these “exercise” machines, that you stand on and “lose weight” due to the vibrating movement! Donna was checking them out. I think Amazon is a more effective weight loss program.

Donna working off lunch!

After lunch we ventured over to the Heartland display, and checked out the brand new Charleston 5th wheel model. It received the ‘Best in Show’ ribbon. It was a beautiful 5th wheel, and had a very residential feel to it. We noticed many of the 5th wheels are now including residential refrigerators, induction stove-tops and dishwashers, as options. Dan was able to spend some time talking with a technician from Heartland about some routine maintenance questions that he had. That is one nice part about a big show like this, as they usually have the representatives from the manufacturer’s to talk with, and not just sales representatives.

Heartland Charleston

Of course if money was no object, I found a coach that I could live in, the Monaco Dynasty 45P! It was one of a few motorhomes that had a lot of storage space in the kitchen, a comfortable layout in the living area, a shower that you can move around in, and a curbside dinette.

Monaco Dynasty

They had a few antique trailers on display, including this 57 foot long, long trailer.

a long, long trailer

And we found a little trailer that would be perfect for Makena.

doggie trailers

You can spend a lot of time walking at this show, as there is row after row of vehicles to look at. And we saw many RV’s with ‘sold’ signs on them, including some in the seven-figure price range.

lots of RV’s

On the second day we attended the show, we were finally able to meet up with two more couples whose blogs we have followed for a while. John and Kathy, have an excellent podcast (available on ITunes) that we have listened to for several years, as well as a blog and website, Living the RV Dream. Nick and Terry of the Gypsy Journal were also at the show. In the photo below, Dan is talking with John (in the white shirt), with Kathy behind him. Terry is a bit hidden behind Kathy, and Nick is sitting on the end of the bench. We had a nice conversation about full-timing with both of them, and look forward to meeting up with them again somewhere down the road.

Living the Dream/Gypsy Journal

Quote for the day: “There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.” – Linda Grayson

Blog Post 100 – again stolen by the dog

Posted on January 17, 2015 by liv2rv

Hi everyone, it’s me again, Makena. For the new followers, I like to occasionally steal my parents blog and write about living in an RV from a dog’s perspective.

After my mom’s last post about Amazon, I heard her comment that was post #99. Since 100 is a pretty big number, I knew it was time for me to post again, since I managed to steal the 50th post.

My turn to post!

I have been enjoying my time in Florida. It has been full of presents, sunshine, and best of all, visitors! And it is nice not having that alarm clock scaring me half to death at 5am. A perfectly good night of sleep is ruined by that screeching ‘beep, beep’ noise, followed by my mom’s grumbling.

My Christmas wishes came true – I had some really nice presents to open. Nice to see my parents use those gift cards on things other than gas and groceries! I really enjoy opening presents. My parents made me sit patiently staring at my package for a while. Oh, the suspense!

Patiently waiting

I finally received the ‘okay’ command, and it was off to the races!

where is it?

And much to my delight, I received a squirrel with sixteen squeakers!!!!! Best gift ever!

16 squeakers of joy!

Take a good look at the squirrels head…he was beheaded about 30 minutes later! I was able to get three squeakers out, before I decided to take a nap.

time for a nap!

My social calendar has been pretty full as well. Unfortunately, I still have not figured out how to take photos, and my parents seem to forget as well, so I don’t have photos of everyone that has stopped over. But I was very excited when Fred and Donna stopped over. We first met them the day after we picked up our 5th wheel, at a Heartland Owners Rally. They, along with George, Iris, Gary and Pam took my parents under their wing and they had a fun and educational week together. It was nice catching up with them, and my parents had a nice BBQ dinner with them – no doggie bag for me though 😦

My pals Steve and Joan, from Crazy Horse also stopped by. They were home for Christmas to visit their family, and are now back in Lake Mead for the winter, where they do some volunteer work.

Steve and Joan

Tom and Ellen, co-workers from Amazon, also stopped over. They were also kind enough to invite my parents over to Ellen’s daughters house for a fantastic Christmas dinner. Again, no doggie bags for me. I think my cousins Rudy and Reagan need to teach me the fine art of stealing people food from the counter! They also got together at a Tiki Bar near Clermont to watch the sunset together. But it was a cloudy day, so not much of a sunset (serves them right for not bringing me along!)

Tiki lounge

Karen and Al, also fellow Amazon workers, stopped by as well for lunch, and Disney planning. We will all be going to Disney the first week of February, so they dropped off some DVD’s for my parents to watch. My mom is pretty clueless about all these Disney characters so she has a lot of homework to do.

The park we are in now has a fenced in dog area, so I have been able to get out and play almost every day!! It’s not a pretty dog park, but it’s a great use of space right along the fence. I wish more parks would do this, as I have a lot of energy to burn off.

play time!

And when I am not busy playing outside, I watch these super noisy sandhill cranes go by every day. They are bigger than me, so I keep a safe distance!

safe viewing distance

Well that pretty much brings you up to date with my social life. Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years!

Quote for the day: “Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear.” – Dave Barry

Final thoughts on Amazon

Posted on January 10, 2015 by liv2rv

Now that the dust has settled, and our final checks have been received, including the retention bonus, I will have one last post on our fall work camping jobs with Amazon. If you want to read more posts on our time at Amazon, you can go to our home page and click on tabs for Amazon.

This was an unusual year for us, as we began our 12 weeks at the center in Campbellsville, KY, where we worked in 2013 as well. Our second year was going well, and we renewed old friendships, and made new ones as well. Our final 4 weeks were spent at the center in Jeffersonville, IN (SDF-8). I have previously blogged about how we ended up there.

Overall, we had a good time up in Jeffersonville, IN. It was very crazy when we started, as they had just hired on 1400 temporary employees over the last 10 days before we started. Clearly, management had too many people to watch over, and it was a bit entertaining, and frustrating, watching so many people stand around and not work. But over the next 10 days, management seemed to catch up, and many of the temps were no longer employed. Amazon does not tolerate people who have no desire to work.

As far as the work, we enjoyed picking apparel, jewelry and watches compared to some of the heavier items we picked in Campbellsville. SDF-8 is clean, climate-controlled, and well-organized for picking. Our managers were very pleased with the performance on the Camperforce team. Several of them commented that our “numbers” (production) were equal to or even better than their veteran full-timers were doing. They were hoping that our work ethic would rub off on the “younger” employees! Over and over we heard how they want to have a full Camperforce team next year, because they would not have to hire so many temporary employees.

HOW MUCH CAN YOU MAKE IN A SEASON?

The center in Kentucky (SDF-1) pays $10.00/hour and includes your campground. If you work 2nd shift, or the weekend day shift, you will receive an additional $0.60/hour as a shift differential. If you complete your season, you will receive an additional $1.00/hour for every hour that you work. In addition, you receive time and a half for all hours worked over 40 in a week. SDF-1 hires about 500 Camperforce, starting at the end of August, going through the middle of November. We like working 12 weeks, so we start at the end of September. The pay rate in Indiana was $10.75/hour. We have not heard what the pay rate will be for this fall.

Our total gross pay for the 12 weeks at KY/IN was $12,983.61. This amount does not include the additional bonus money that we received for going to Indiana. Amazon paid us $1,000.00 each (net) for going up to IN. This was a one-time deal. We also each made additional money in gift cards for working there. Indiana was very generous with gift cards.

For working 59 1/2 hours, we each received a $100.00 VISA gift card (we did this for 2 weeks), and we received another $100.00 in gift cards from Target, Subway, Panera Bread, Applebee’s, and Texas Roadhouse for various contests they held for picking. Another workcamper won over $400.00 in gift cards for these contests. From talking with other Camperforce, the IN facility was the most generous facility in perks. We also had three free pizza lunches, cupcakes, fruit, Panera treats, and several Krispy Crème donut days in Indiana.

WILL WE GO BACK?

Yes, we will go back for our 3rd peak season! Amazon is not an easy job, but it pays well for a workcamping job, provides a free campsite, has some nice perks (gift cards), and gets us in good shape! But the best part of the job, is all the wonderful people that we meet. There is something about making it through a season that brings people together. Your co-workers become an extended family, and you can make some wonderful friendships if you want.

Amazon is also a great place to work if you are a single, or have a spouse that does not want or need to work at Amazon. They just want people who are willing to show up and work for the season. As long as you realize you are just there to work, and not change the culture of how Amazon does things, you will do just fine.

Also, Amazon is a great way to network about other work camping jobs. All of our other jobs have come from talking with co-workers about jobs. In addition, the KY location has an annual job fair in December that is well attended by employers.

WHAT LOCATIONS ARE AVAILABLE?

The program will be changing this year, as the centers in Coffeysville, Kansas and Fernley, Nevada have closed (Amazon has opened newer centers near those locations). According to Amazon’s Camperforce website, they will have programs in place in KY, TN, IN and Haslet, TX (which is a new site). The site does state to check after January 15, 2015 for more details.

We have not heard any details on what the pay or campgrounds will be for IN. We would consider going back to KY or IN, depending on the terms. We will wait to decide on the location until we have more details.

THE BIGGEST LOSER!

And a drum roll please…..the one thing our families have been waiting for! The final weight loss numbers from our 12 week fitness program. For the first time since the 1980’s Dan weighs under 200 lbs. He lost 14 1/2 pounds this year after losing 27 last year, as well as 5% body fat. I lost 6 pounds (too many dinners out!) but 6% body fat!

If you have any questions regarding Amazon, please let us know.

Quote for the day: “I used to work at a movie theater and sold hams at Honey Baked Hams during the holidays. I sold a ton of hams and they offered me a regular job there, which I turned down. I feel like anything you do, just do it 100% because then that work ethic will bleed through when it’s time to work on your dreams.” – Tika Sumpter

Changing our Domicile to Florida – Part Two

Posted on December 31, 2014 by liv2rv

Welcome to part two of our “moving” blog. You can view part one here.

To get a driver’s license in Florida, you need several forms of identification. We used our South Dakota drivers license, Passports and social security cards. Florida does recognize SD licenses as a primary form of ID, but for some reason, they do not recognize licenses from 20 other states as a primary form. It is best to be safe and have more ID then needed. You can read more about the requirements at the DMVFlorida.org website.

In addition, you must have two pieces of mail from your new address to get your license. (and the mail must have all names of those registering on it, and be from a bank, utility, insurance company, etc.) So it is very important to set up your mailing address about a month before you officially change your domicile, to insure you have the proper mail to complete the process.

Also, you must have proof of automobile insurance issued by a Florida agent before you can apply for your driver’s license.

When we signed up with St Brendan’s Isle as our mail forwarding service, we stated we would come in person to complete the forms in person, and pick up our first batch of mail. They were very helpful and went over the forms we needed, and gave us a map of the area so we knew which buildings to go to, and what order. Our only “glitch” at the time, was getting our VIN number verified for our 5th wheel.

Florida does require a VIN verification of any vehicle getting registered in Florida. When we left Amazon in Indiana, we drove down through Atlanta (on a Sunday with minimal traffic) and stayed overnight just south of the city. It was a long travel day, but we needed to get to Florida before everyone closed up for Christmas. The next day we stopped in Lake City, Florida which is near the intersection of I-10 and I-75. We decided to stay here, even though it was another 65 miles to Green Cove Springs. We figured we could just contact the police, have them verify the VIN on the 5th wheel, and then drive in to Green Cove Springs and complete the rest of the registration process.

However, the police in Lake City require you to go to their courthouse in town, pay a $4.00 fee, then call them back and they will have an officer come out when they have time. Since we only had the afternoon to complete our registration without staying another day, we decided to just skip this step, and register the 5th wheel another time via mail. We were not aware there would be a fee to have the VIN verified. (more on that later)

After picking up our mail, we drove over to the Clay County Courthouse and filed our Declaration of Domicile. This form is needed to register to vote in Florida. We used our SD Drivers license as our proof of identification. The cost for this form is $15.00 per person, which includes a $10 filing fee and $5.00 notary fee. We had two young couples ahead of us in line applying for marriage licenses, so our wait was about 15 minutes to complete this process.

Clay County Courthouse

After the courthouse, we went to the Clay County Administration Building to apply for our drivers license and vehicle registration. After making sure we had all of our paperwork, they gave us a number and told us to have a seat in the waiting area. But before our butts hit the chairs, our number was called. We encountered the most pleasant employee, Christie, who made for a very smooth process. (that’s right….a pleasant DMV employee!!) She also stated they are now able to complete our voter registration, so we did not need to go to another building to complete that.

Clay County Administrative Building

We explained that we were not able to verify the VIN on our 5th wheel, and mentioned the fee that the Lake City police were going to charge. She said she has never heard of any law enforcement department charging for that service, and several of the other employees who heard us talking mentioned that as well. So apparently the charge is just unique to that city. She also stated since our fifth wheel did not have an odometer, it did not need the VIN inspection, and she could register it because we had the original, clear title, which had the VIN on it. We were very happy about that!! She did go out with Dan and verified the VIN and odometer on the truck.

She scanned all of our documentation in for the drivers licenses, and we did a very simple eye test, and took our photos. Christie even re-took Dan’s photo, because she didn’t like the way the first one came out. The driver’s license (good until our birthdays in 2023) cost $48.00 plus a $6.25 service fee. In Florida, you can renew your license up to 18 months prior to expiration, and you can renew on-line or by mail one time, before you have to appear again at the DMV.

The application for our titles were $87.75 for each vehicle, and the license plates were $52.10 for the 5th wheel (5 months, expires in May) and $127.35 for the truck (12 months). Since our pickup truck is over 5500 pounds, it falls into a class that gets renewed every December. Otherwise, the renewal is based on the month of birth of the first person listed on the title. That is how we ended up with 2 different renewal dates.

So our total costs with the DMV was $463.45, and if you include the $30 for our domicile declaration, our total cost to become members of the Sunshine State was $493.45. It took us about 30 minutes to complete everything, and then we were on our way!! It was a very simple process, and a lot cheaper than we expected.

And now that we are Floridians, we are eligible for the reduced rates at Disneyworld!!!

And for the Quote of the Day……

Changing our domicile to Florida – Part One

Posted on December 29, 2014 by liv2rv

Since June of 2013, when we became “full-time” RV’ers, we have been legal residents of South Dakota, which has a reputation as a very RV friendly state. No state income taxes, low auto/RV insurance rates, and affordable health insurance were the main factors in our decision to join the “Great Faces, Great Places” state. But for those of us who do not have employer sponsored health insurance, or are too young for Medicare, that is changing in 2015. If we remained SD residents, we would not be able to have in-network nationwide coverage (except for emergencies). For a more detailed assessment of the changes, you can read this article HERE. The article is from the excellent healthcare website, dedicated to RV’ers, RVerHI.com. South Dakota remains an excellent choice for those on Medicare, or for those who do not need to purchase their own health insurance.

The other two main RV friendly states are Texas and Florida. We had no real preference, and decided to look into the costs for both. I have decided to put this post in 2 sections, this first part will just cover mailing services and insurance companies The second part will cover our actual process of changing to Florida.

PICKING A ZIP CODE/MAILING SERVICE

Currently, we use MyDakotaAddress.com as our mailing service in South Dakota. We have been extremely pleased with the excellent service that Terri Lund and her staff provide. If you are going to change residency to South Dakota, we would highly recommend them.

Texas has the very popular mail service provided by Escapee’s, of which we are members. Escapee’s is now offering mail service in Florida. We started looking into health insurance rates in Texas, based upon the zip code for the Escapee’s organization. Rates for the two of us, on the healthcare exchange, were $273/month for the bronze plan with BCBS of Texas, offering an excellent nationwide plan. (we had been paying $198.00/month in SD for a silver plan through Avera. That plan was going to increase to $269.00/month, without nationwide coverage).

Once we started looking into Florida zip codes, we quickly realized Florida would be a better deal for us, so we eliminated Texas. Another concern for us is that Texas also requires a vehicle inspection when renewing your tags. Currently, you can request a waiver if you are not in the state at the time of renewal. But as we have seen with SD, things can change.

Florida has four main mailing services that we are aware of: Escapee’s, American Home Base, MyRVmail, and St. Brendan’s Isle. We had no preference, and started checking health insurance rates based on the four different zip codes/counties. Our best option was to become residents of Green Cove Springs, in Clay County, Florida, and use St. Brendan’s Isle as our mailing service. We will be paying $11.99/month plus postage for their mailing service. They were the most expensive of the four in terms of monthly costs, but that zip code provided us with the cheapest health insurance rates. We have a bronze policy with Assurant for $198.00/month for the two of us, with a $6,000.00 deductible. Preventive healthcare is covered at 100%, no deductibles, as required under the Affordable Care Act. Since we are both healthy, we decided this was the best option for us. If we had chronic conditions, then we would have gone with a silver policy, which has a higher monthly premium, but lower deductibles. The policy has an option for a health savings account, which we were able to fully fund last year.

Again, this is just what works for us. If you are considering changing your residency, take the time to check out all the zip codes/counties/states to decide what works best for your situation. Another thing that we considered in our decision, is that our current doctors in Wisconsin are covered in-network by our Florida plan. So we can keep our same doctors/clinics/hospitals.

I spent several hours going through all the websites of the mailing services, comparing monthly costs and fees, and then getting health insurance quotes on the exchange using all the different zip codes. Not the best way to spend a day off, but the more time you spend doing your homework, the better prepared you will be to make such an important decision on where to “live”.

Auto/RV Insurance

South Dakota has very reasonable auto and RV insurance rates, so we were prepared to pay more for coverage in Florida. It is important that you get proper insurance coverage, if you plan on living full-time in your RV. Howard Payne of RV-Dreams.com has written several articles on their website regarding RV insurance coverage (click HERE)

We contacted American Adventure Insurance, Miller Insurance Agency, and Epic Insurance Company for quotes. Given the wide variation in pricing that we received, it certainly pays to shop around. Just make sure the quotes you receive contain the same information, so you are truly comparing apples to apples.

In South Dakota, we had coverage through Blue Sky Insurance, and we paid $639/year for our truck insurance, and $813.00/year for a full-timers policy on our 5th wheel. (total $1452). In Florida, the best rates we received came from Epic Insurance, with coverage provided by Progressive. Truck insurance $1064 and 5th wheel insurance $796 (total $1860). We are paying $408/year more for the same coverage we had in South Dakota. A bit of an “ouch”, but we have piece of mind knowing we have better health insurance coverage.

In my next post, I will go over the steps needed to complete changing our domicile.

Quote for the day: “The more that you read, the more things that you know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss

The “RV” train has left Clarksville

Posted on December 22, 2014 by liv2rv

Just a quick update on the blog. Saturday 12/20 was our final day at Amazon in Jeffersonville, Indiana. We packed up and left Clarksville, Indiana very early on Sunday. Our goal was to get to Florida ASAP, as we are in the process of changing our residency from South Dakota to Florida. I plan on separate blog posts to give our final thoughts on Amazon as well as the steps we took to change over to the Sunshine State. And yes, we will have our final weight loss numbers as well from Amazon. I know our family looks forward to that number!

These last four weeks have been very busy, working 59 1/2 hour weeks at Amazon, and using our day off to research mailing services, auto/RV insurance rates and health insurance rates. We are really looking forward to a few days of doing absolutely nothing after the first of January!

WELCOME NEW BLOG FOLLOWERS

Dan and I (and our dog Makena) want to welcome our new blog followers. Last January, we met up with Chris and Cherie of Technomadia in Cedar Key, Florida (along with a great group of other RV’ers!) They have an awesome video series, called Ramblings – Tales from Nomads on their website, where they interview fellow RV’ers. We have enjoyed watching and learning from these videos, and agreed to be interviewed by them. It was our hope that we could offer a little advice about our lifestyle and the reasons we decided to full-time before “retiring”.

A few days ago they posted that interview on their blog, and we have seen a surge in new followers as a result. We are very humbled that you have chosen to follow along on our journey. The RV community is a wonderful extended family to us. We have no regrets whatsoever!

For those that have not seen the video (about 8 minutes), click here for the link.

We always welcome comments and questions. And again, thank you so much for following along!

We wish all of you a very Merry Christmas!

Quote for the day: “This is all you have. This is not a dry run. This is your life. If you want to fritter it away with your fears, then you will fritter it away, but you won’t get it back later.” – Laura Schlessinger

My parents lied….

Posted on December 13, 2014 by liv2rv

Hello everyone, I am back to give the “dog’s perspective”.

Keeping my peeps informed!

Two weeks ago, I noticed my parents packing up our stuff in the 5th wheel. I became very excited, and promptly did my part by sitting all day by the door, so they would not forget me. When they told me to “kennel up” I happily sprinted into the back seat of the truck, and settled down in my kennel, dreaming of warm and sunny Florida. They promised me we would be going there after Amazon. When they stopped and opened up my crate, I figured we were stopping at one of those doggie rest stops, where I get to pee everywhere.

And then I realized, we were in another campground. Hmmmm. I thought we were going South to Florida, but somehow ended up going North. To Indiana. In December?? Yikes!

Now my parents tell me they did this because of a big bonus that Amazon offered. I better be getting some new toys and treats out of that bonus. Especially since they did not consult me in this decision. And now they are working 11 hour days too? They leave when it is dark, and return after dark, so my play time has been very limited.

The only good part of this, is my new dog walker. She takes me for 30 minute walks every day in the park across the street! And she likes to jog, so I finally have someone to jog with. My mom said she will only run if her life depends on it.

My dog walker leaves a daily “report card” for my parents, so I have to be on my best behavior. The first thing they do when they get home, besides petting me, is read that note. Puts lots of pressure on me to behave, but I try my best!

I have been trying to make some new friends, on those rare days off that my parents have. Here is me with my new friend, Snowflake. Yes, she is a cat, but I find that cats don’t like to sniff my butt like dogs do. I am starting to not be afraid around her.

making new friends

THE END IS IN SIGHT

My parents just finished up a 59 1/2 hour work week. Seems Amazon offered all their employees a $100.00 VISA gift card, for anyone volunteering to do that. They have been pretty exhausted at night. They told me today that next Saturday, December 20, will be their “release” day from Amazon. All the Camperforce will be heading out on Sunday….yay….off to Florida!!!!

But then they informed me they signed up for another 59 1/2 hour work week. Seems people are buying lots of slippers, socks, bathrobes, watches and jewelry, so they are very busy at their fulfillment center. And they need another big push this week, so they again offered $100.00 VISA gift cards to all employees that work the crazy amount of hours. My parents tell me the 1/2 day is a piece of cake, but since I am not allowed to eat cake, I have no idea what that means.

According to my math, with the $400 in gift cards plus extra overtime money, my parents should be able to buy a lot of treats and toys for me. After all these long days of staring out the window waiting for them, I am exhausted and deserve a reward!!

Quote for the day: “No matter what you are going through, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and it may seem hard to get to it but you can do it and just keep working towards it and you’ll find the positive side of things.” – Demi Lovato

50 Shades of Grey

Posted on December 2, 2014 by liv2rv

Week #1 of our new adventure at Amazon in Jeffersonville, Indiana is under our belts (or should I say clear plastic fanny packs, as that is what security will allow you to wear?!). Three more weeks left to get your shopping done, and we will be off to warm (hopefully) and sunny Florida. This first week has flown by, and went relatively well for the 40 of us sent to Picking. The 60 folks sent to the Packing department had a few bumpy days, until the management figured out what to do with all of them. Part of the problem was due to having 1400 people start in 10 days. Just too many bodies for the staff to keep track of.

Picking apparel has been both easy and challenging. The easy part is not having to lift anything heavy, with the exception of some giant Ivanka Trump handbags that must have been a Black Friday special. You could knock a person out with one of those!

The challenging part comes from trying to figure out all the different words the manufacturers use to describe a specific color. Out is blue, red, green, purple. In is viridian, amaranth, harlequin and eminence. So when my scanner is telling me to pick a women’s sweater, medium, in cinereous, I just stare at the different grey sweaters for a while, looking for a medium. Each item has a bar code on it, and if it is the wrong shade of grey, the scanner will beep at you to let you know you are wrong.

When it comes to fashion, I would describe myself as “fashion illiterate”. I am a jeans and t-shirt person, but even t-shirts are not just “t-shirts”. There are ruched long sleeve shirts, princess shirts, popper hem shirts, open shoulder, off shoulder, etc. And then there are the purses! Clutches, shoulder bags, cross body bags, top-handle bags, etc. Fortunately, there are usually only two styles in one bin, so I can figure that one out pretty quickly. One of our fellow Camperforce associates, an older gentleman, stopped me to say he thought he had a missing item in the bin. His scanner told him to pick a “clutch”, and he did not see any automobile parts in the bin. So he started to scan all items, as required if you think the item is missing, and discovered a purse is also a clutch! He said he never heard that term used before.

This year, all Camperforce associates in all four facilities were given a purple t-shirt, which we have all been wearing at SDF-8.

2014 Camperforce shirt

I have been stopped multiple times by the regular full-time employees at SDF-8. They are very thankful we are here to help, and ask if we have any questions. Many are curious about our lifestyle, and think it is great that we are able to do this. One gal said this has been the worst she has ever seen it since the plant opened in 2012. She said it is not normally so chaotic, but they just cannot keep up with the demand, and have to hire anyone that comes through the door.

We have been enjoying picking at this facility. It is very well-organized, but huge. The pick mods start at aisle 100, and go up to 250. The bins (start of the row) begin at 20 and end at 980. Each floor is divided into three sections. To put that into perspective at Campbellsville, the biggest section (Q) would start at row 1 up to row 102. Each row would have bins 1 – 95.

Starting with Black Friday, we are now on 11 hour days. It is not mandatory for the Camperforce to do 11 hours, but we decided to try it, and was pleasantly surprised at how fast the time went by. We are just not as tired at this facility. The floors are not plywood, so the feet do not get as tired. And since the pick areas are so big, we do not have to walk up and down the stairs as often. Most of the people who have pedometers said they are walking about the same or less as they did in Campbellsville. We were laughing on break that if we don’t walk more than 10 miles in a day, it just doesn’t feel like we have been working very hard! Your body really does adapt to the walking after a few weeks.

so true!

Makena has been doing well. Her dog walker likes to jog, so she has been jogging in the park across the street with her. Every day we get a report card on how she is doing, and we really look forward to that. So far, she is “exceeding expectations”!!

Quote for the day: “Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them.” – Ann Landers

Liv2RV

Living and working around the country in a RV