Kirk W

When I did some looking into that several years ago we made up about 20% of the registered voters, but the impact is far greater because we also happen to be the two precincts with the highest rate of registered voters actually voting. I think that the turn out rates brought our impact up to around 30% or so. Each election the Escapee's hold a "meet the candidates" nights and historically most candidates jump at the opportunity to attend. An interesting bit of history is that over time the voters of Escapees have changed the political climate in Polk county from one of the swing counties to one of pretty solid political lines. That change is what caused the court case that has verified the validity of the Escapee address for legal purposes in the state. What happened was that a candidate for County Commissioner chose to file suit to block the election results when he lost, based upon the thesis that he lost because of the votes of Escapee members who don't really reside in Polk county. That was back about 1998 and the suit tied up the voting rights for us for about four years until it went though appeals all of the way to the TX supreme court. As I remember, it was finally settled about 2002 or 03. It also resulted in the TX legislature making changes to the laws addressing voter registration, driver's licensing, vehicle registration, and several other laws to make it very clear that our addresses are legal. Those laws do not specify the Escapee mail service but spell out what a mail service must do to qualify as a legal address of domicile and were based upon the Escapee Mail Service model.

I think that it demonstrates the importance of the Escapee residents to the Polk county political scene and the importance of the RV community to the TX economy. Both of them are far more significant to the economy and to re-election in TX than they are at the federal level.

You are correct in that but know that Escapee's have worked with people and successfully gotten that problem resolved with a number of financial institutions and should you have the problem the business office is the first place to call. It could very well crop up again, but they have experience in dealing with this problem. The fact is that as many of us as there are we just are not a significant factor in the overall market place so are seldom considered when companies or government agencies make up new rules. That is one advantage to doing business in Livingston since everyone there seems to understand and want the business of fulltimers.

There is no need or reason to do that. Under TX law the address is quite legal for all functions and it was tested in the courts and upheld. Escapees is not the only such address that qualifies in TX but it is the only one tested through the courts.

Makes sense now.... Sailed right over my head.

Who told you that FL residents can't be members of Escapees? Some years ago there was an article on the subject of home states of Escapee members in their magazine and if I remember correctly there were no states that didn't have at least one or two members.......

Is this true for a private sale? I believe that it was true in the past for dealers, but we have two neighbors who have sold an RV in the past year and I know that neither of them had a current inspection sticker............. Another neighbor just bought a different fifth wheel and has his old one listed as well.

There are 10 possible locations listed in the TX-DOT website. That is a question that I have asked many times over the years and to date, I have never heard of one.

Thanks for the current info, Scott!

They are good until you return to the state. There is no specified time after return to get them renewed, it simply says "as soon are reasonably possible" or something similar.

With longer stays it becomes much more important that you be upfront about this. If it were me, I would contact the park you want to stay in before you get there and discuss it with them. Better to know before arrival. Most of the long term parks that we have stayed in also have no pet sections and pet sections so that those who don't like pets can have their areas too. As Earl says, they do want business, but just want to avoid problems with people's pet and between pet owners and other visitors. Very few of the park managers just dislike dogs.

I think that I'll take all of my money out and go buy gold to bury!

On has to define "still in" to some degree. I don't think that many of us have yet withdrawn to the point of keeping the money in cash in a box somewhere, but most probably are somewhere between fully invested and completely out. I have never been one to buy into gold and precious metals, but about a year ago we did take out a pretty significant chunk and move it from investments into real property. To us it seemed a good time for the move with real estate markets off and investments of most any kind not showing much growth. In the months since, our remaining funds have shown growth over all. We are a lot more conservative in our investments today, but we are by no means ready to take the "shoebox" approach.

So John, you didn't answer your own question......... Are you still in? If you can manage to read long enough I think you have been answered here..