Friday afternoon, when it became evident that I wasn’t going to get my trailer registered or licensed with the State of Montana, I hooked it up and drove to Missoula anyway. I had been given some firewood which I wanted to get and didn’t have any other way to move it. Fortunately, I wasn’t stopped or ticketed for “transgressing” the Law, but if I had been, I had an answer ready.

The clerk had given me a form to complete when I had the inspection done and I still had that in my truck. If necessary, I would have told the cop my story, pulled out the form, and asked him to inspect the trailer then and there. If I was on my way to Missoula, I would have been looking for a police officer and grateful for his assistance. (This was true, to a degree, although it was a very small part of  the equation.)If I was travelling back home, it would have been that the trailer had been in Missoula (which was also true) and that I was taking it home to unload it so that I could have it inspected.

It’s amazing the novel ways a person can come up with to sidestep the strictures that the State seeks to place on him.

P.S. If anyone takes exception to my methods, please keep in mind that I fully intend to have the trailer inspected, approved, registered, and licensed. I’m just not horribly concerned about getting it done immediately. All in good time. Everything comes to those who wait.

P.P.S. I checked the VIN# on the trailer against the one on the (valid) Florida registration and discovered that the VIN was indeed correct. Why did it show up on her computer as invalid? I don’t know, but I can think of at least four reasons, the least damning being that she simply made a mistake inputting the number. Ah, well, get the doggone thing inspected and tagged, and give them what they want–my hard-earned dollars.