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Home Sweet MailboxAug 4, 2008
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Madison Welcome Sign
Downtown Madison North
Downtown Madison South
We have spent the past several days in our “host” hometown, Madison, South Dakota. We picked South Dakota because of low taxes, no state income tax and no living requirements to “establish residency.” We picked Madison because of the mail forwarding business “My Dakota Address” and the services they offer. Hence, our mailing address is 110 E. Center Street #934, Madison, South Dakota 57042. “My Dakota Address” not only forwards our mail to wherever in the country we request, but they E-mail us, daily, with the return address information of the mail that we receive. This makes it so much easier for us to decide when we need our mail sent to our current campground/RV Park location. And most RV Parks have no problem with receiving their camper’s mail, especially since it all comes in one package. While we were here we also got our South Dakota driver’s licenses and registered to vote (absentee ballot, of course.)
Madison has a population of about 6,500 people. It is located north west of Sioux Falls. It is a weekend vacation town for the folks of Sioux Falls. They come here for water sports, swimming and sunning. The lake to South Dakotans is like the beach to Californians. It is strange to think that the ocean is so far away.
South Dakota is unbelievably green. There is grass and trees everywhere. There is a price to pay for all this green....BUGS! We camped at Lake Herman State Park, just outside of Madison. The lake is very large but also shallow. Due to the hot summer weather, a lot of algae was growing along the shore. The lake was often very rough due to high winds and frequent storms that were common during our stay. We never found a good opportunity to take our boat out.
Amazingly, we were the only Class A motorhome, in the park, during this past (sold out) weekend. All the other 72 campsites had travel trailers and fifth wheel trailers. While all the trailers were in decent shape, we were the standout in the campground. Folks walked by pointing at our motorhome and Jeep. We got comments like “Nice camper.” We looked rich among the locals. This would NEVER happen in California…where we are just one of the many. Just glaringly demonstrates the cost of living differences, as we move across the country.