Mission Accomplished!

Ok, not really. The car is now titled and tagged in my name. But like that former PotUS, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start in the middle:

U-haul said my full-size Ford pickup wasn't big enough! I think they just wanted another $20.

I took off work today, anticipating a horrid day of waiting in line at the DMV, then hassling with someone over the VIN. My worry: the VIN on the California title was the serial number of the engine block, not the body serial number on the inside of the door post. So I've been fretting for days that I'd have a struggle.

Well, of course, the struggle today was all with U-Haul, who started off by saying my truck wasn't big enough to tow a vehicle 2 miles on level ground, then once I convinced them of that, that my hitch wasn't rated high enough. Finally I gave up and rented a 10' truck for the morning. And when I returned it, they threatened to charge me a $30 filling fee if I didn't go get 1 gallon of gas (I'm not kidding--they made me go get 1 gallon of gas because the needle was one needle-thickness below the 7/8ths of a tank mark, where it was when I picked it up.) How's that for great customer service?

But back to the DMV: What an excellent experience! Not only did I get great, cordial service where I was treated like a human, but I learned something too. Apparently, before 1960, both California and Oregon used the serial number on the engine block as the VIN number. But they gave me no problem switching the official VIN to the body serial number on the door post, and I was able to purchase (for an extra fee, of course) vintage tags that looked like they did when my car was but a young thing.

Pacific Wonderland!

Now the real fun can begin!