Now that we are in Mesa, we have started looking at motorhomes (RVs in the US).
There are lots of options, but we very quickly discovered that our original idea of getting something in the mid to late 90s may not be such a good idea. This is because in 1999/2000 there was a significant design change in the most popular chassis that the RV builders were using. The main change was to increase in the width of the wheel track. This made all coaches since 2000 much more stable and safer to drive. Consequently, any pre 1999 coach is less popular and is much harder to sell. Obviously, we don’t mind that they are somewhat cheaper to buy, but we do have to think about the resale value and ease of selling. A wide-track RV is much preferred and therefore a better bet. There has not been such a significant change since, so it is important to be on the right side of the watershed.
Looking at some of the other choices that we have to decide about; there is the question of petrol or diesel. Diesel RVs in the age range that we are looking at tend to be around $30,000 more expensive than petrol. But with a diesel, you get nice things like air suspension for a better ride, rear engine for quieter driving, better fuel economy, and more expensive fuel. Petrol (Gas !) engines apparently tend to have a shorter lifespan, sometimes under 100,000 miles. But the price issues mean that we can only look at petrol engine RVs. Of course, they are all automatic transmissions, we doubt that there are many manual vehicles around.
One thing we realised quite quickly is that, even though we are looking in the 1999-2003 age range, the specifications and appointments are a step up from what is normal for NZ motorhomes. You get all the usual things, Kitchen, cooker, fridge/freezer, bathroom, toilet, double bed, sofa couch that converts to a bed, and loads of storage cupboards. So far, pretty much what is normal for a motorhome anywhere. Although, ours at home is a little unusual for NZ, in that it has the café seating, most RVs of a similar type here feature café-style seating. Where the US RVs offer a higher level is with dual air-conditioning, double sinks, slide-outs, and levelling jacks. So there is more space inside, it is level and stable, and you can keep it relatively cool inside – all great advantages. On the other side of the ledger, here you get smaller fresh and waste water tanks, and the whole camping concept is predicated around using RV parks that provide full hook-ups of water, waste and electricity. Our preferred habit of freedom camping in NZ (called boondocking here) has to be modified a bit to accommodate the smaller tanks and greater dependence of mains electricity.
So anyway, after looking at lots and lots of different vehicles, with lots of different layouts – some unsuitable for very good reasons, we found a nice 2000 model with only 32,000 miles on the clock. As our NZ friends will see from the photos, this is quite a radical departure from the décor of our NZ motorhome, with all the wood and the colour tones of the furnishings.
In the course of looking at these, one of the salesmen told us about the Dinghy List, which lists towable cars by year. So a quick trip to the Internet gave us a list of additional makes and models to consider. We came up with several US models, and several Japanese models that were suitable. David felt that we should stay with models that we are familiar with, the Japanese models. Of these, the Honda CRV stood out as being small enough for towing, and big enough for comfort and resale potential. So it was back to craigslist and a quick search turned up nearly 30 possibilities within a reasonable distance from Mesa. Things are looking much better than with the Suzuki. We looked at several and finally chose one and bought it.
Along the way in all this, we have been checking out the requirements for owning, registering and insuring vehicles in the US. Some things we knew about before we left NZ. For instance; because we are not already officially resident in any State, we are able to choose where we will declare residency. The thing is that when a resident in one State makes a major purchase in another state, they are able to make an ‘Out of State purchase’ and are then only liable for taxes in their home state. Obviously, this is only any use when the home state sales tax is lower than the sales tax in the State where the vehicle is being purchased – it gets complex to explain it. Just accept that the savings can be substantial. Some of the most popular states for full-time US RVers are Florida and Texas – mainly due to their low income tax rates. Our choice is predicated on the sales tax rate. We won’t be earning any income, so that is irrelevant. To establish residence, you need an address (we rent a Personal Mail Box that provides a street address) and to sign a couple of forms with the chosen State, and that’s it! The best choices turn out to be Montana, South Dakota, and Oregon. We found a company in South Dakota that provides an address, mailbox, and helps with registration of vehicles, so having everything that we needed in one package made the choice much easier. Now we have an address in South Dakota, and are liable for 3% SD Sales tax on major purchases.
One more requirement: In order to register a vehicle here, you have to have either a Social Security Number, or a Driver’s Licence. Obviously, we cannot get an SSN, so we have to get our Driver’s Licences. David spoke with the Licencing authority in South Dakota and confirmed the situation. They deal with it all the time and it is not uncommon at all. But, because we only have foreign licences, we had to sit the tests – and that means fronting up in person in South Dakota. So, here we go again… Find the cheapest fares ($49), and a timetable that gave us a couple of days in town to sit the licence tests, and bingo! We are off to Rapid City, South Dakota. Now SD is a lot further north that Arizona, so it’s a lot cooler, like 12 degC. Wonderful! Jeans and jersey weather. Bliss! Cool again…
The licence test was what you would expect – a bunch of swot and a little stressful at the possibility of failing and having to resit (they make you wait until the next day to re-sit), and nobody being able to make up their minds if we had to do a practical driving test or not. Eventually they rationalised that we drove up to the test, and presented our NZ licences, so probably we could handle the actual driving part, but we had to sit the theory, if only to follow protocol. So we had a day left over to go sightseeing.
While we were waiting for our licence test appointments, we stumbled on this lovely little café in Rapid City. Totally homely and just what you would expect in a rural community. While we were having lunch, a family at the next table had apparently heard our foreign accents, and correctly guessed us as from New Zealand. It turns out that Jim and Liz had been in Christchurch with the Deepfreeze project, so they are familiar with the Kiwi accent and can tell the difference from Australian (not many people here can!). Jim is a retired Navy Captain. Anyway, they invited us to join them at their table. It was such a lovely time with them, such warn and friendly conversation, and an invitation to keep in touch. We have invited them to join the blog, so we better say nice things about them. But really, visiting with them was a highlight of the day. Jim is involved with assisting people with learning disabilities, as well as supporting the Crazy Horse Foundation, and the Friends of Mt Rushmore. Their recommendation helped us decide where to visit.
There are probably 5 or 6 top tourist things to do around Rapid City: Mount Rushmore, the Black Hills; Deadwood City; The Badlands; and Crazy Horse Memorial. We ended up going to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. The other options were further away, and would have taken a full day or more to visit.
Both Rushmore and Crazy Horse are mountain carvings, but they couldn’t be more different. Rushmore was federally funded and carved over a period of 14 years by a team of several (4-500) hundred people.
Crazy Horse was started by one of the people who worked on Rushmore, and was virtually a one-man effort for many years. It has always been funded by private support and donations and is coming up to 75 years in the making.
Also, for comparison of size, the 4 Rushmore figures would all fit inside the space of Crazy Horse’s head – that’s the man, not the horses’ head! It’s going to be impressive when it is finished. Here is a photo of the plaster model with the actual carving in the background. As you can see, there has been a huge amount of rock removed, and there is a whole lot more to go!
In this view, the mountain carving is about 3 miles away, so you can guess that it is big, really BIG! The head alone is 87.5 feet high (26.7 m). That's at least 9 stories high!
If you want to know more, here are links to the respective websites. Mount Rushmore National Memorial
Back ‘home’ in Mesa, we got a bit of a nasty surprise. Just before we left Mesa for South Dakota, we had picked up our new (to us) car and returned the rental. So we drove out to the airport, locked the car and lumped on the plane. When we returned three days later, we discovered that the battery was flat. A very kind guy at the Enterprise rental agency (recommended – good cars, rates and service) gave us a jump start. Of course, that was when we found that the alarm was going off! It must have been something about the way that we had locked the car, or something about the way that the dealership had activated the alarm that had set it off. Obviously the alarm had been sounding off constantly until the battery went flat. We hate to think of the language that must have been directed at the car and us for the past three days with the alarm going off! We eventually had to get the dealer to reconfigure the alarm (and the radio – when the radio looses power, it locks itself out, and you can’t use it), and no problem since. Most embarrassing, glad we weren’t there.
OK, so we have the RV, the car, and our licences. Now there are two more tasks to do. First was to get a tow-bar organised for the car, and second turn the empty RV into a home with pots and pans; cutlery and crockery; linens and towels; and all the rest of the bits and pieces that will let us eat and sleep.
The towbar is a story all in itself. Peter Johnson might be interested in the detail here because he built our A-frame in NZ. US towbars are quite different to NZ towbars. In NZ, everything is custom made to suit the particular vehicles. In the US, they are mass produced, off the shelf products with a range of features that are simply not practical in a smaller market like NZ. For instance, the A-Frames here are hinged, telescopic and foldable. There are dozens of brackets and pins and bars and clips involved, not to mention the chassis mountings, receivers, safety cables and wiring harness. The whole point of this seeming complexity is to enable most of it to be mass-produced while having only a minimum number of special parts to customise the system to all the different makes and models of cars that people want to tow.
The telescopic tow frame makes it so simple to hook the car up to the RV. Just drive up somewhere behind and about 2 – 4 feet away; unfold the telescopic bars; hook up to the car, and Bob’s your uncle. When you drive off, the arms extend until the latches lock in, and from there everything is rigid. Disconnecting is as easy as tripping the latches, pulling two pins and folding the arms down behind the motorhome. Here are some photos to illustrate. Note that the safeties are cables, not chains.
So now we are finally ready to get out on the road. It is hard to believe that it has been three and a half weeks since we arrived in Mesa. A lot has happened in that time, but, looking back on it, we wonder why it took so long…
{{ standing ovation from readers…}}
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