How We Became Floridians … Officially

Wednesday, 12 September
high Temp: 76F (24C)

Today was the day!  Today, we completed the domiciling requirements to officially become Florida residents.

Most of this post deals with the domiciling process, and the whys and wherefores of our decision to make Florida our state of residency.  If you’re not interested in this information, you can skip to the end where I’ll wrap up our trip to Florida.

Mui had done quite a bit of research to determine which retiree- and RVer-friendly state would work best for us, and we had settled on South Dakota initially.  We’d gone so far as to determine that we’d be using Alternative Resources as our mail forwarding service; had been in touch with them to understand the domiciling process; and had booked United Airlines (UA) award tickets to Sioux Falls for Sep 9-12.

Then, a small wrinkle appeared that would have cost us a good chunk of money.  I won’t get into details except to say that it had to do with SD’s sales tax requirements and the fact that our motorhome was purchased in Oregon and remained registered in that state.  When it became apparent that Florida did not have the same sales tax requirements if you’ve owned your motorhome for six months or more, the decision to switch from SD to FL became a no-brainer.

At about the time Mui was re-checking his facts, I went into our UA flight reservations to figure out what it would take to change our itinerary from Sioux Falls to somewhere in Florida.  Clicking the wrong button, I accidentally canceled my reservation — oh sh*t!  There was a notation on the reservation to contact UA anyway, so I immediately called the 800 number for help.  A very friendly and efficient agent thanked me for calling and said she needed to find us another way to get to Sioux Falls as the flight we’d booked was no longer operating.  We took this as an omen that becoming SD residents was not in the cards for us … yeah, grasping at straws perhaps; but it worked out :-)

That UA had discontinued the flight meant we could cancel Mui’s reservation as well and re-book to FL at no cost to ourselves; even our award miles were re-deposited into our accounts without a fee.  Of course, before we could re-book, we had to figure our where to base ourselves in FL.

The next step after we changed direction from north to south was to find a company in FL that would give us a “residential address” as well as provide mail forwarding services.  Having already looked at options, Mui had a short list from which he selected American Home Base, a Pensacola-based company that provides services not just to RVers, but to boaters, as well as the military and State Department.

With that settled, we turned our attention to making travel arrangements for Pensacola.  There were plenty of UA award seats available and they were on non-stop flights!  Of course, that was when we had the bright idea to add the prior weekend to our itinerary so that we could enjoy some R&R in the sunshine state.

What we didn’t know at the time was that the Florida Tax Collector’s Office (aka, the DMV) would be doing a computer system upgrade that weekend and their offices would be closed Monday and Tuesday.  But, that too worked in our favor — since we managed to get quite a bit of the domiciling process completed before our trip to Pensacola, we gained some additional R&R days.  When a phone call to the Navy Lodge on NAS Pensacola resulted in reasonably-priced beachside accommodations, we knew our decision to domicile in Florida was the right one :-)))

We’ll be heading to Florida when we get on the road in December, so we could have waited to take care of all this domiciling work then, but the Phaeton’s Oregon registration renewal, which required an emissions inspection, was due September 12.  That speeded things up for us.

In early August, armed with information from the AHB website, as well as consultations with Tena, our contact there, the next step was to formally establish our relationship with the company.  That gave us the “residential address” we needed to proceed with our domiciling plans, as well as the POB address for our mail.

Opting to have AHB handle the vehicle registrations on our behalf, we completed the paperwork and sent it to them along with the necessary county registration fees.  AHB charged us a per vehicle handling fee, which Mui felt was well worth it.  Within 10 days, we had our FL license plates in hand.

Next step was to file a declaration of domicile with the Escambia County Courthouse.  AHB provided the necessary forms.  We completed one form for each of us and sent the forms to the courthouse along with a $10/person check.  The registered forms were returned to our Florida address, and were two of the pieces of mail we picked up on Monday.

And that brings us to the final step, which we completed today.

Getting our FL driver’s licenses was the one step that required our physical presence here.  As recommended, Mui contacted the DMV ahead of time to schedule appointments to minimize our wait time.  That was when we found out about the office closure on the 10th and 11th of September, meaning we’d be doing this last step on the last day of our trip to FL.  The scheduler assured Mui that all we needed was ½-hour to complete the process and gave us the first appointments of the day at 8:00a, thus allaying our concerns about any conflicts with our late-afternoon flight back to DC.

The DMV was as good as its word.  Arriving shortly before it opened at 8:00a, we were the only two with appointments and were called up ahead of everyone else that was in line.  We went up to the “greeter” window where our names were registered; those without appointments followed and were also registered there (they received buzzers similar to those given out at restaurants).

We were then each called to a window (the Escambia County DMV has a lot of windows and works very efficiently; we were very impressed).  We provided our US passports and social security cards as proof of ID.  In addition, we needed two proofs of address — we used the Florida vehicle titles as one form of proof, and self-certified our address as the second proof by using a form that we downloaded from the DMV’s website.

Turning in our Virginia DLs, we answered a few questions, did the brief eye exam, and voilà — we were done.  Included in the half hour we spent at the DMV was voter registration, which is optional.  We took advantage of the convenience of taking care of it there and then.  We received our DLs immediately; the voter registration confirmations will be sent to our mailing address in a couple of weeks.

And so, you can call us Floridians now!

   

Now to wrap up our FL trip …

It was a bit warmer, not to mention more humid when we woke up this morning.  And overcast with no sign of blue skies.  Taking it as a sign that FL was trying to make it easy for us to leave behind all that we’d been enjoying these past few days, we ate a quick breakfast on the balcony and prepared for the day ahead.

With an 8:00a appointment to take care of business, we skipped our morning walk on the beach.  Returning to NAS Pensacola just before 10:00a, we were escorted on base by the Blue Angels, who were running one of their less-frequent Wednesday practice sessions.  How nice of them to welcome these brand new Floridians to their — and now, our — home city ;-)

Cheating with a photo of the Blue Angels from yesterday; I didn’t have my camera with me today.

Despite the overcast and wind, one last walk on the beach was in order.  We would have enjoyed ourselves more had the wind not sandblasted us so hard.  Despite the angry waves crashing ashore, Mui went for one last dip before we returned to the room to have lunch on the balcony — a Kashi frozen entrée of roasted garlic chicken farfalle; it wasn’t half bad.  We had requested a courtesy late check-out, so we had some time to relax in the room until 1:00p (there’s a $37 charge if you want to stay in the room longer).

Mui does his good deed for the day, pulling a tarp out of the surf.

There I go getting wet again!

We arrived at the airport shortly before 2:00p.  Rather than going through security immediately, we got ourselves a couple of scoops of ice cream at Varona’s Restaurant, which netted us a table with a view of the runway and a blazing hot wi-fi connection to browse the web and kill some time until our 4:43p departure.

These three murals at Varona’s have more of a Miami vibe than a Pensacola vibe.

Our US Air flight was delayed about 30 minutes.  While waiting to board the CRJ 200, Mui asked the gate agent if the exit row seats were still available.  They were!  I imagine that no one wanted to pay the additional $25/seat for a two-hour flight.  By asking for them at the last minute, we got the seats for free.  It doesn’t always work out like this, but who are we to question our luck :-)

Delayed slightly, flight 2354 is being prepared for departure.

We were wheels up at 5:05p for an uneventful flight that found Mui whiling away the time with a magazine.  I used the time to draft today’s blog post.

Farewell for now, Florida; we’ll be back!

Although we landed a little early at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, it took us a while to make our way across the tarmac to our parking spot in front of maintenance hangar at the far end.  By the time we boarded the shuttle for the ride to the main terminal and got to the metro station it was past 9:00p.  Even with switching metro lines to get home, it took us less time to get there than it did for us to get out of the airport … that’s a good thing and worth $3.50/person for the 40-minute ride.

Now to get ready for our camping trip to Bull Run Regional Park … which starts tomorrow :-)