The Department

...of Motor Vehicles, and the Drivers' License building.

That's where we spent half of our morning. It actually didn't take too long to register the car at the DMV.
The drivers licensing process, though--my goodness. At least we had all the right documents!

First, there was the line when we first walked in the door, where people waited to find and fill out whichever application fit their need. Since we had already downloaded and printed our appropriate applications from the internet, we slipped by there without hiccups.

The purpose of the second line was to get a number. But this wasn't just a pull-tab machine we waited to see. At the front of this line was a man whose job was to discover our business and then make sure we had all the right documents. I actually think this is a great idea; presumably, with this mechanism in place, people don't waste half their morning waiting for their number to be called, just to be told that they can't do what they've come to do. After he paper-clipped our relevant documents together with a (pull-tab) number on top, we got to sit in the plastic chairs!! (Every DMV building has the same plastic chairs.) There, we watched red digital numbers flash on a small screen. Actually, I helped Tigger bounce on and off the chairs and run up and down the rows, while Doo kept an eye on the numbers.

Since there are so many different people waiting, with so many different reasons for being there, the numbers don't seem to have any consistent order or pattern. It's like winning a raffle when your number flashes in red up on the black rectangle!

Doo and I went to separate windows to hand in our individual paperwork and get a "kiosk number" in order to take the written (open book) exam. Fortunately, I finished my exam by the time Doo was ready to start his, and the Tigger hand-off went very smoothly.

After the exam, there is one more line to wait in: here, the desk clerk hands you a temporary paper license and informs you that the real one will arrive by mail in 4 to 6 weeks.
What?! Is this piece of paper going to work at the liquor store? Or do I need to carry around my birth certificate, marriage license, and social security card for the next month?

:)

Sort of anticlimactic.

But now it's done. Tonight we'll put our new orange and blue plate on the back of the Sonata, proudly displaying our residency in the state that boasts of Arches National Park.

And in about a month we'll again have drivers' licenses that fit into our wallets.