Yesterday, I drove into Henderson, NV to finally make my Nevada residency official! It took most of the day, but it’s all done, finally. Then, I headed out of Nevada to go find a campsite at the wonderful Trona Pinnacles.
Nevada Residency
I chose Nevada a couple of months ago, because of the lack of income tax. There were several different states to choose from in that regard, but getting a Nevada residency is pretty self-explanatory, upon reading the new residents guide on the Nevada DMV website. It was also close enough to San Diego, where I have been spending so much time, and there were plenty of mailbox services to choose from.
I ended up going with a service that will scan all of the mail in so that I can read it online, and they will then shred or forward anything as well. It’s a wonderful thing, and makes all of the managing of my mail a lot easier. In fact, I still need to go to my original mailbox in San Diego again to pick up months of mail!
About $500 later–counting smog check, drivers license fees, and car registration fees–I have Nevada plates on Tivona, and my Nevada Drivers License will soon be in the mail. No real trouble at all, overall.
To Trona Pinnacles
I could have easily gone back to the Lake Mead area to camp after the DMV shenanigans, but I was getting a bit anxious for something different and more exciting. I’ve seen a handful of other bloggers and Instagram users that I follow head out to the Trona Pinnacles for camping, and it looked really interesting.
It was a five hour drive from Henderson, NV, so I arrived in the dark. After driving through terrible winds and dust storms with atrocious visibility. But I arrived. In the dark. I could barely make out the pinnacles, and I really couldn’t find a particularly good campsite, so I just setup somewhere that looked “good enough” for the night.
It was an interesting night: I tried to sleep in the hammock, but the wind was so awful, it was remarkably uncomfortable. The pinnacles themselves would block the wind sometimes, and my car would help as well. But then the wind would shift and render all of my positioning useless. I ended up sleeping in the car before getting up and moving to a different spot this morning.
Interestingly, this morning, a large film crew was in the area, shooting scenes for a car commercial. I didn’t figure out what kind of car they were shooting for, but it was cool. Anyway, time for a beer!
