How did it go?
It passed inspection with flying colors and I got the registration processed AND got my shiny new license plate.
In other words:
Mission accomplished. :)
Pachaug loop legality (and a return to my normal weekend rides without any more interruptions), here I come.
Yes, indeedy, I got the WR-250FP registered for street use today, and that's a big deal for several reasons.
One, I'm sooooooooooo glad that the time and money put into the whole project was worth it and that I can quit worrying about it.
Two, I'm once again riding a Yamaha WR-250F on the Pachaug enduro loop that's a legit bike with a legit license plate on the back of it, and that means I don't have to worry about getting a ticket for riding an unregistered motor vehicle while doing it.
Why is a street license plate required to ride the Pachaug loop?
Well, partly because there are short sections of public road connecting the trails together into a loop, and partly because the state of Connecticut simply says the bike has to be street registered in order to ride the trails within the state forest to start with.
Period.
Well, you got it, Mr. Forest Ranger dude. ;)
The details on the trip to DMV?
Well, it takes about an hour to get there since it's about 55 miles away, and that's a big reason why I'm so glad it flew on the first attempt - it ain't exactly across the street, Lenny.
I got up there at about 11:10am and went inside the main office building to pre-pay for the inspection, just as I was told to do the two other times I did this kind of thing.
This time, however, the nice and well-meaning lady at the information desk told me to just go out to the inspection station (across the lot about 100 yards from the main office building), get the inspection done, and then come back in to pay for the inspection while processing my registration.
Wrooooooooooonnnnnngg.
I told the nice lady that wasn't how it was done the times before, but she insisted I do it her way.
Well, the inspector said I was actually correct and the nice lady was wrong.
He inspected the bike, alright, and it met all of the requirements of the actual inspection, but wouldn't give me the last punch mark of his paper puncher on the spot of the inspection sheet that says PASS, and he said I wouldn't get a pass mark until I went back in to pay for the inspection.
So, the nice lady was actually running the DISinformation desk in my case.
I told her.....
So, naturally, since the Wethersfield, CT. DMV (which is the state's main office for that stuff) has you pick a number for everything, I had to wait just to pay for the inspection I'd already got, finally got that done, and then had to trot back outside to the inspector and show him the receipt where I'd paid for the already-done inspection.
He then let me have that awesome punch mark on my inspection sheet that said PASS.
I told her....
Well, with the inspection out of the way, it was time to go back into the main office building (again) to process the actual registration.
That meant more waiting for my (new) number to be called.
When I picked my number for that mission, I wanted to throw-up when I saw that 60 numbers had to be called up to the counter before mine came up.
60.
That's six-zero, and it takes anywhere from two minutes to fifteen minutes for a new number to be called.
Yes, Benny, that line was moving pretty slowly.
I then decided to just say "bye" to that place and drive to my local DMV branch in Norwich for the registration part since I felt I'd be sitting there waiting for my number until midnight.
The Norwich office had only a tenth the people inside of it, and that's because it's a smaller building and a smaller town and not the main Grand Poo bah office like Wethersfield is.
That's just fine and dandy with me, although once I got my new number to be called up I found there were 21 numbers before mine, and I still had to wait about an hour and a half.
Still, much better than midnight. ;)
It is, far and away, the waiting that is the suckiest part of the whole thing.
That, and the typical DMV uncertainty about anything you want to do there, where sometime the simplest things can get stopped in their tracks if you didn't dot an i or cross a t, or if one of the people working there is in a pissy mood.
Once I FINALLY got to the registration counter, that part went fairly well.
The guy waiting on me did the typical head-scratching about my wanting to register a WR-250FP for street use (and I guess that's because they don't see many Yamaha Certificate of Origin documents cross their counter tops), but before long and after a conference with his coworkers, he got the hang of what it was we were doing:
Registering my bike that had just passed an inspection, and the inspection said it was now worthy of street use.
Simple, eh?
He thought so, too.
Eventually.
After about 10 minutes of keyboard punching and money collecting, I walked out with my registration form and license plate.
So, after leaving jerk this morning at 10:11am, I drove back into the parking lot at about 4:50pm.
I'm now home, the bike is unloaded and back safe at home, I'm eating my supper, and I'm quite tired.
More tired, in fact, than after I good ride out on the Pachaug loop.
It's all of that waiting and the stress of the DMV uncertainty that does it.
In hindsight, even though I've done this three times now (WR-250FY, CRF-450X9, and now the WR-250FP), I really don't want to do it again anytime soon.
That means I really shouldn't switch bikes anytime soon.
Good thing I like this WR-250FP, huh, Lenny? ;)
-John
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