Three days of learning the finer points of what has to be done to become a "legal" citizen of The Great State of Texas.  It ain't pretty.

Despite reading all the different state websites for vehicle registration and driver licensing over and over months in advance of returning to Texas (where we were both born and lived for 29 years), it was still a laborious and start-stop process.  And things have to be done in an exact order too.

Before you can get your driver license, you have to register your vehicles.  And before you can register your vehicle you have to pass a state safety inspection, on anything you put on the highway.  That means that we had to pack up the RV for travel, pull in the slides, disconnect all the hook-ups and hitch up just as if we were going on a major trip.  But we were only going to the local auto repair shop that does inspections.  It should have been a place just a couple miles down the road we are on but on this particular Monday that shop was out of inspection stickers.  We had to instead drive 15 miles; 5 miles down and through the town of Livingston and then another 10 miles west to Onalaska.  Onalaska is a little town on Lake Livingston, it has three stop lights and we turned at the second one to find Wayne's Tire Shop.  Wayne's had the right combination of stickers on hand and a driveway large enough and flat enough for big rigs to maneuver.  It was not ideal though, we had to hunt for a place to pull into the dirt driveway that was level enough not to drag the rear of the trailer.  There was one spot at the far end of the lot.

They got right to us and instructed me to pull into the garage bay.  "Really?"  "Yes, just stick the front of the truck in as far as you can without hitting the trailer on the garage door."

I wheeled around and tried to get as straight as I could with the space available.  I got most of the cab of the truck in and they seemed to be happy with that.

It seems that all this maneuvering and squeezing in was just so they could get their bar-code scanner within reach of the door jamb of the truck.  Other than that it was just flash the lights, honk the horn and turn on the windshield wipers.  I paid the fee (actually just another tax) and spent the next several minutes backing my way out, dodging cars that had come in and parked around me while getting inspected.  The guy that did the inspection was nice enough to help direct me through the maze and watch traffic for me on the highway that I had to overhang to get out.

Back to the campground.  We again backed in and precisely positioned the camper so that the slides would not hit the water spigot on one side or the trees on the other.  Cyndee does a great job giving hand signals and staying in view of my mirrors.  We get the job done almost silently.  A lot of times you can hear other couples yelling at each other, sometimes heatedly while trying to get backed in.  It usually turns out to be entertainment for the surrounding campers.  We do what we can to stay off the entertainment agenda.

With the camper back in its place and all hooked up, we got the A/Cs running and with inspection certificates in hand, we headed to the tax commission office back in town to register the truck and trailer.  It is a long story and took the rest of the day, but dozens of documents later and $800 in taxes, our vehicles are official Texans.  Cyndee and I are not yet, but the equipment is.

It has been a long time since I saw a tag on the front of one of my vehicles

But the day was not quite over yet, we had just enough time to get down to the TDPS (Texas Department of Public Safety) to get our driver licenses.  I don't know how many of you have had to renew your license since the Patriot Act came to be, but it really has made getting a license or state issued photo ID an arduous process.  One of the multiple forms of ID that you must present is an original social security card.  I had one, Cyndee did not.  Mine was the one my parents got for me somewhere back in the 1950's.  It was pretty much a machine-printed, thick, almost cardboard paper.  It was in mint condition but when I showed it to the agent they said it was "too old" and that I would have to get a "modern" one.  And it did not matter that we both had valid passports.  You would think that those would be the highest form of identification.  Nope, still have to have the SS card.

You can apply on-line for a card and wait several weeks or you can go to a social security office in person and still wait several weeks for the card.  But with the in-person visit you get a certificate with a government document control number on it that the TDPS will accept in lieu of a SS card.  All of that is well and good except there is no SS office in Livingston.  The nearest one is an hour away in Lufkin.  We now have our to-do list for Tuesday.