Of course the tulips aren't out yet here in Kansas, but they will be in a matter of weeks.. And I thought this header picture would be a thoughtful reminder that spring is right around the corner....
And every year as I get home, I have to do battle with the various DMV's to get license tags renewed. Our pickup truck is licensed in Missouri as it pulls Missouri trailers... So it has Missouri Insurance... And we do purchase two year tags, but this is the year...
And Missouri has one of those pesky inspection laws... They go over your entire vehicle while jacked in the air on a rack.. Holes in your exhaust.... no license..... bad brakes...... no license... You get the idea...
And Missouri is stuck in yesteryear so they allow the inspection station a whopping $12 to do this work... And require that it takes 15 minutes to do it as well.... The form has a start and stop time right on the top...
This requires that a shop not make much money for its troubles, so it is hard to get anyone to do inspections.... But I know the place over in Belton, Mo where they will take you without an appointment... They have a full time guy, that does these all day every day....
I gave them a $20 and told them to keep the change.... I was feeling guilty.. It would cost $50 in Arizona and take about five minutes...
Then over to the local DMV office in the same town... Again they are contractors for the state.. Private Folks... A line for about 15 minutes and maybe 5 minutes at the window.. It took longer than that to drive back home. So that's the Missouri experience...
Now on to Kansas.... I have that enclosed trailer that the motorcycle rode home in... Trailers in Kansas are all done in January... Its their only month... We are in Arizona in January... I tried one year to do it after Christmas....... Nope, not January yet...!
So every year we end up driving the trailer back into Kansas with its expired license... Just hoping no cop will catch us.. So later in the afternoon, I got a computer appointment to get in line to pay this tag... You can do this from home or anywhere....
Wait was listed at 51 minutes... So I went ahead and left the house on the cycle... And when I got there about 15 minutes later, the wait on the schedule TV showed an hour and a half... Then I got a message on my phone that said 2 1/2 hours... Which proved to be the correct amount of time... The place closed at 4:30.... and I got out of there about 10 minutes before they closed... With my little sticker to put on the plate and $36 poorer... There were still over 100 numbers listed on the screen when I left, so they must stay until everyone is served.....
Kansas has soo many people here in the KC area that these government ran boiler room offices are overwhelmed... They have 19 windows in Olathe, and 17 of them were staffed... The people hardly took any breaks.. So I keep thinking, look at the bright side... you don't have to work there every day..!
Our whole big stack of plates will be due in June, but this year I will mail them........... I Promise!
Retired Rod
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Ouch, costs more in Arizona, but we don't have to go through all that. Glad you are good for another two years!
ReplyDeleteThat system sounds simply archaic - I can't believe it when you write about it each year. Anyway, it's done for another few months. It sounds like your weather has warmed up a bit too.
ReplyDeleteThe Missouri system is archaic but they don't have so many people to serve at each office... They have lots of private offices all over the place.. In Kansas they only have two offices in the entire county... and they are government run.. with big attitude problems... But you would have an attitude too if you had to serve 6 or 700 folks every day... And the computer system is brand new with the very latest in technology...
DeleteThe tulips are just beautiful!
ReplyDelete