Well, it’s over. At least land life is over for the time being. One year, two years, or more – we’ll figure that out as we go. We moved on board full time on May 11, the day after my birthday. The house in Franklin, TN has sold, we closed on May 26. Estate sale has completed, that was held on May 15 and 16.
We are now in the process of wrapping up lots of loose ends before heading out. We use a mailing service out of Green Cove Springs, FL. With them, we actually have a street address that all our mail is sent to. After establishing that, we have now gotten our boat registered in the state of Florida, which is necessary before you can declare Florida as your resident state. Choosing Florida as our resident state was mostly the result of two points. The first and VERY important one was that it is a state that, like Tennessee, does not have income tax. The second point is that unlike the state of Tennessee, there was a mailing service located in Florida that can provide a physical mailing address, as opposed to a mailbox number, which is a requirement to declare residency if you don’t own or rent a physical residence. We don’t physically have the boat registration in hand yet, but the Clay County tax office did call me Friday and told me that it was completed and being mailed to my Green Cove Springs address. After it is received there and it has been forwarded to us at the marina here, then we will drive to Green Cove Springs to the court house to get drivers licenses and declare residency. Then it will be on to register to vote and get our trust that was set up in Tennessee reworked for Florida requirements. At the same time, we have told the marina here at Joe Wheeler State Park in Rogersville, AL, that we will be leaving here at the end of June. So it is going to be a very busy two weeks. With the apocalypse going on at the same time, it has really added challenges to say the least.
And so it begins, a slow cruising start, but a very busy time getting ready to go. By the end of June, the plan is to start a slow run down the Tennessee River to Green Turtle Bay Resort and Marina near Grand Rivers, KY. And no, that wasn’t a typo, going downriver on either the Tennessee River or the Cumberland River means that you will be traveling north. Tennessee rivers run north. For some reason. Anyway, we plan to stop in at Florence, AL , only about 20 river miles from this marina, for a couple days, we would like to visit some of the musical sites around the Muscle Shoals area. A lot of famous 60’s and early 70’s music was recorded in that area, and even though we’ve been located near there for almost a year, we haven’t had the time to really visit. After that, a couple days stopped at Aqua Yacht Harbor marina near Iuka, MS about 60 river miles from Florence Harbor Marina. We’re hoping to meet up with some old friends that we made in years past when we had sailboats at that marina. After that, we plan to leave AYH and make our way to the Pickwick Lock and Dam which is about 10 river miles from AYH. After we lock through there we will actually be in the Kentucky Lake pool, but about 75 river miles from Green Turtle Bay.
So this is where we are at this point. For now we’re busy getting ready for this life while living it.