7-29-2018

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Progress is being made getting out of South Dakota, but it's real slow.

We think we have medical straightened out. All the policies and Medicare now have our address as South Dakota. We also have mail order prescription drugs working. They should all be using our new US Bank for auto pay, but we’ll see in a month or so.

We signed all the Estate Documents from the lawyer. There were a lot of them including:

Revocable Trust
Pour Through Wills (for each of us)
General Power of Attorney (for each of us)
Health Power of Atterney (for each of us)
etcetera (related documents)

The idea is to move all our assets to the Trust which should avoid probate for our heirs. We’ve been meaning to do this Estate Planning for years, so not really related to Fulltiming. But Fulltiming convinced us we really need to get it done.

One strange occurrence though. We opened a US Bank savings account for the new Trust. They would not accept our PMB address as our residence. This after opening a new account before leaving Oregon with US Bank where they never questioned our address. The South Dakota bank would not take “514 Americas Way #9463” but were happy with “514 Americas Way” as our residence. The government, and big corporations, are getting screwier and screwier.

The title for the new RAM has been holding us up. Purchased May 15. Called Oregon DMV earlier and found they cut the title June 25. That meant we could declare it lost and request a replacement July 25. They say it was mailed the week of July 9. For these dates to be true, someone is sitting on their thumbs. Before sending off the paperwork I called them July 25. They said the title was returned to DMV, arriving July 24. They didn’t know why it was returned or how DMV determined we don’t live there. It is where they sent the plates earlier. They agreed to mail the title to South Dakota, maybe going out July 30. I don’t think I believe them anymore.

This all has taken more of our time than you could imagine. Lots of forms to fill our, trips to the UPS Store for *.pdf prints and form scans. Hard to believe it will ever end, but we’ll get it all set up very soon.

Several fun trips into the Black Hills. The weather has been cooler than the first part of July which is nice. But still very wet, which we’re still not used to. Also don’t see as many storm warnings, and no tornado warnings, further west. A different world we’ve wandered into. Denise found she could take a “burst” of pictures and pick out the picture with the lightning. Must have a lot of lightning strikes close together for this to work, and we do.

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We did a hike to Cathedral Spires, some 3 miles in and out. Not a bad hike and pretty scenery.

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Nice lakes around here. One example, set in granite, was Sylvan Lake. Reminds us of Watson Lake in Prescott, AZ.

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Not the only nice place, but very impressive granite for pictures.

We completed the scenic drives though the Black Hills. Several of these are in Custer State Park towards the south end. Can’t go through Custer SP without noting the buffalo (above). Also saw a few antelope.

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We did a loop hike in Custer SP, some 3 miles. It was through the grass lands, so lots of grass. Not many vistas or scenery be a good hike. Did see a prairie dog town about half way though. But mostly rolling grassy hills, with lots of flowers from all the rain.

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One crazy drive was 16A between Keystone to Hwy 36. Very curvy with road spirals and one lane tunnels. Very impressive. We finally saw Mt. Rushmore from the Norbeck Overlook. A long ways away, but with a telephoto:

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And from the same Norbeck Overlook:

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I was able to wax Larry (the new RAM) while here. More to protect it than make it shine, but it accomplished both. Took a couple of hours a day over four days. One more day to wash Dora and get the bugs off.

We found the air conditioner was leaking inside. Googled a little and decided we had to take the covers off and see if any drains were plugged. Still worked fine but was dripping inside, a little. Took the covers off but couldn’t find anything amiss.

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Decided it must be the rain or excessively humid conditions. Looked fine so we put the covers back on. We’ll monitor it, but likely it’ll be OK when we get back to reasonably dry weather. Nice to know we can take the covers off, it’s a long ways up there. It seems to rain here daily, in the afternoon into the evening and night time. Not good for us desert dwellers.

There have been some very nice sunsets, but the foreground leaves something to be desired.

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