Buying an RV in California without paying their 8.5% sales takes requires jumping through some hoops. One of those hoops is that the RV must be actually delivered out of state. Stier’s RV has a process for that.
A driver hired by Steir’s drives the RV, with you in it and his pickup truck towed behind it, across the state line to Primm, Nevada. There you are met by a notary who fills out forms and witnesses your signature that you did indeed take delivery out of state.
The route from Bakersfield, California, to Primm, Nevada, goes through the Tehachapi mountains passing right alongside the Southern Pacific Railroad’s Tehachapi Loop. It’s hard to take pictures at highway speeds through a window with a screen on it but here’s one of the loop right beside the highway and another of it running perpendicular to the highway as the railroad curves and climbs.
There are three casinos in Primm, built right along the Nevada state line so you go from empty California to busy Nevada all at once.
The transactions all took place inside our new home. While the notary had Dave sign one set of papers the driver finished his filling out another.
Then they left and we were on our own. We taped to the windshield the temporary permit Karen of Alternative Resources in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, jumped through hoops on our behalf to get us then drove another couple of hours to Pahrump, Nevada, to a SKP co-op where we will stay until we feel more settled. If we are lucky, we will buy our new toad in nearby Las Vegas and get the hitch and supplemental brake installed there. After all the challenges of buying the RV here we would probably head back to South Dakota to buy the toad if it wasn’t so definitely winter there.
Now we have 15 days to get new tabs for our license plates. Once again Karen is jumping through those hoops for us. Putting the plates on now is not an option because any cop who decided to run them may then identify this as a stolen vehicle since the registration of the plates was for the View not the Journey. The new tabs will change that status letting us keep our easily remembered license plate number.
The only thing that actually went smoothly about this whole purchase was the transfer of our insurance from the View to the Journey. Hopefully, we will eventually get all the other pieces to match our new reality–which actually doesn’t feel very real yet.
TTYL,
Linda
and then you’re heading toward Maine to let me boggle at it, yes? It should be summer by the time you get here!
SO exciting! It’s yours! It won’t be long until you can catch your breath from the hoop jumping and the moving, and start enjoying your beautiful new space. And begin a new adventure! Enjoy!!!
Laura (taking off in a week or two and can’t wait!)