Tuesday 18th October – RMV hell! *Warning - This is a wordy one folks but was a CRITICAL day for the trip!*

As planned, we rolled up to the RMV in Lowell, Massachusetts before 9am.  We paid for parking at a meter for up to 2 hours, we had our appointment at Campers Inn at 11am for our lesson on how to use our new toy/home so we had to leave the RMV by 1030am to get there in time. Our paperwork was arranged perfectly, in order.  We joined the queue in the street outside with other efficient people with the same idea – get in there early.  The doors opened and we edged forward nervously before being directed into the ‘have you got all your paperwork in order’ checking queue.  The male clerk made positive, affirming noises.  We had our bill of sale, insurance cover note…. But, no.  ‘This stamp is a scan, we can’t accept that.’ We asked him to explain the issue.  Our insurer, Progressive, should have a square, printed stamp that would have been accepted as official, but what we had on the form was a clear photocopy of a scrawled signature. It wouldn’t cut the mustard.  

Plan B was required, back to the car outside having been reassured that the rest of our paperwork was in order.  Instead of waiting for our overnighted paperwork delivery at lunchtime, the next plan was to get the necessary stamp at a local representative of progressive insurance.  So what if the head office was in California? – there were progressive brokers locally, if we showed them the paperwork surely they would be happy to give us our required stamp?  But across the road at our nearest option we were met with stony-faced refusal, not possible. Again, U.S Insurers don’t work like that. I looked at my watch.  We didn’t have time to drive about to other insurers on the off-chance of getting help and still be able to make our 11am appointment.  But while we were there, and the queue was small we decided to tackle the issue of payment so I waited for the second time that day.  The same male assistant, our ‘stamp-refuser’, confirmed my fears. We could not pay via credit card.  Having explained that cheque was not possible and that I could do with some guidance on where I could get a money order, he patiently directed me to the nearest post office suggesting that they should be able to assist.  I left again and grabbed Simon and our passports from the car before dragging them towards the post office.  The Post office clerk was intent on being helpful… until he heard the amount we needed for the money order. “No, not for that amount, you’ll need to go to a bank. There’s one across the street”.  Off we trundled. “Sorry, we can’t help unless you’re a customer of the bank”.  That’s a problem when you’re in a country where you aren’t the customer of any bank!  This wasn’t going to happen – we weren’t going to be able to get hold of such a large amount of cash in one day.  I was going to have to transfer money across again and we wouldn’t be able to get our plates until we had it.  And the damn stamp…. We returned to queue a third time at the RMV to explain our predicament. Nothing.  The stamp-refuser was made of stone, there was no room for any flexibility with these people!!  I was starting to despair and Simon and I were snapping at each other as a result of our frustration.

Leaving empty-handed from the RMV it was time to head to New Hampshire and Campers Inn for our lesson, despite the fact that we were now unable to drive away our new RV.  We arrived on time.  The young guy showing us the ropes was somewhat surprised that we were complete amateurs which became apparent when we explained that we needed to video his instructions! Despite the bad start to the day we were both smiling – the RV was even better than we remembered and everything had been thought of on-board to make it comfortable for us to live in; heater, air-con, water heater, generator, tanks for fresh water, propane to run the fridge-freezer, TV and DVD player.  It was ready and waiting for us…. And some index plates.  As we had time to waste we retrieved our trolley full of goods and loaded it into the plentiful storage on the RV.  There was nothing more we could do at Campers Inn without our plates, so it was back to Westford to await our lunchtime delivery from our insurer containing the paperwork with the original stamp we needed.  These locations are not just ‘up the road’ from each other and it must be mentioned that we were only able to do all of this running around and extra mileage due to the fact that Tash and David had allowed us to use their spare car whilst Tash was away that week.  Otherwise we would have spent a fortune more on hire cars or taxis to be able to achieve our purchase.  

Back at the house I was curtain-twitching and pretty much ran to the post box when the post man arrived.  It was mostly junk mail, but definitely nothing addressed to us, where was our urgent paperwork?!  We both got straight onto our phones – me to Progressive to find out what had gone wrong and Simon to Campers Inn.  I got hold of someone different at Progressive who seemed to understand what I was talking about when I tried to describe the official printed stamp we needed and offered to email me through another version of our RMV1 form with this correct stamp on.  Whilst on this call Simon was gesticulating to me that we needed to go again.  He had identified that Dave the finance manager was off today, but Simon had pleaded with a colleague of his, ‘Stand-in Dave’, to check his mail – our Fed-ex package had been delivered to Campers Inn where we had been until about an hour ago!  I don’t know if I’ve ever used the phrase ‘it beggars belief’ before, but that is how it felt.  

Meanwhile, David had arrived home to be bombarded with an update on the saga including the issue with the payment method.  Without hesitation, he told us to follow him to the nearest bank where he withdrew the cash we needed in anticipation that I would repay him directly into his account as soon as I possibly could.  We had the money; a quick glance at my watch told me that we were cutting it fine but we should have time to drive back to Campers Inn, grab the paperwork and drive back to Lowell for about 330pm with the RMV open for business until 5pm.

On arrival at Campers Inn I told Simon I would wait outside while he just grabbed the paperwork.  Plus, I was famished and would have time to squeeze a snack in while he was gone!  However, a few minutes passed.  What now? We couldn’t afford more delays, had they lost our paperwork in the time it had taken to drive there?!  Telling myself to count to 10 and breathe deeply I walked towards the reception.  Simon calmly informed me that our insurers had posted us a copy of what they had emailed us. A copy! Not the RMV1 form with an original signature or stamp on that we had been waiting for.  The exact same and pointless thing as they emailed us that was not accepted at the RMV.  It would take us no further forward.  You just couldn’t make it up, but there was no point going back to the RMV with this, so what now?  

I recalled the conversation I had with the insurers just before we’d left Westford.  I checked my emails and found a new RMV1 form from Progressive with a different, clear square stamp on it.  We begged ‘stand-in Dave’ at Campers Inn for help and I forwarded him the email to print.... Except they had sent a blank form with ONLY the stamp on! So, I dictated the content of our original RMV1 form verbatim to Stand-in Dave who typed it patiently onto the new form and printed it out for us.  Oh, and we told him that Dave had volunteered him to write us our refund cheque today as well (Dave was not going to be popular on his return!).

Time ticking by, we returned to the RMV in Lowell and paid for another 2 hours parking. 

Fourth time in the advice queue that day we saw a female staff member this time.  She was intrigued by our accents and when we gave her an overview of what we were planning to do with our RV she was genuinely interested and appeared to be on our side.  She was happy with the RMV1 with new stamp, she checked we had the money ready.  Then we got on to proof of residence.  Both of our names were on the documents as the registered keepers, but Simon’s name was not on the insurance binder document.  Had I forgotten to add him too?!  I tried to offer alternatives for residency – showing the lady a printed phone account page didn’t suffice as it wasn’t a bill.  I tried showing her Simon’s speeding ticket with the local address on – it made her laugh but strangely wasn’t on their list of accepted documents! We were sent away to make another urgent call to our insurance company to try and resolve the issue.  Thankfully, it wasn’t my mistake after all!  The Progressive call taker was apologetic and couldn’t explain why Simon’s name was absent on the binder.  I explained our time constraints and she said that an updated binder would be emailed to me immediately.  To our relief, the RMV had a public access computer that I could log on to, check my email and print the new, updated binder.

Fifth visit to the advice queue that day.  To be honest I was convinced that another hurdle would inevitably spring up, it seemed that anything that could go wrong that day for us, was! But Simon is less negative than I am and was proven right when the friendly female checked our documents and authorised us to move on to the hallowed ground of the green ‘ready to go’ queue! After only 5 minutes or so we were called in front of another female member of staff – the lady with the power to hand us our licence plates…. Or not.  She cast her eyes over our paperwork and immediately said ‘we don’t accept insurance binders as proof of residence’.  My heart sank.  She asked who had reviewed our forms and we explained how they had been reviewed…. 5 times in total!  The power-crazy lady disappeared in the direction of our friendly advice queue lady.  We stood dejectedly, awaiting our fate.  We couldn’t hear the conversation but after 5 more minutes or so the lady with the power appeared in view again.  She was carrying something…. A paper bag…. It had plates in it!!  We didn’t ask any questions, not wanting to tempt fate.  She counted the cash we had brought, all was in order.  Our beautiful registration plates were handed over – they said ‘1026H’ with ‘Massachusetts’ and ‘Camper’ written on them:

The lady turned out to be more helpful than expected when she provided us with a 2017 sticker we would need to adhere to our plates at the end of November….. instead of having to return to the RMV to collect it then, a terrifying prospect!

Beaming, we left the RMV in triumphant mood.  It was now about 445pm.  Simon rang Campers Inn and explained that we still had our hearts set on collecting our camper today.  Probably relieved to see the back of us, they explained that the staff would be leaving at 5pm but if we were content with the idea, they would conceal our keys in the generator hatch of the RV and leave it parked out front for us to collect.  Deal.  We reached Campers Inn for the 3^rd time that day around 515pm.  Hastily, we managed to find something resembling a screw driver to enable us to affix our shiny new plates and took a couple of well-earned smug photographs: 

Simon drew the short straw to drive our new home back to Westford, alone and in the fading daylight, not ideal.  I led the way in Tash’s car, making sure I kept my speed down whilst Si got used to how fast he felt comfortable driving the RV.  On arrival at Westford Si did a cracking job of reversing the RV onto the drive and up near the house.  We had been eager to start loading all our worldly goods onto the RV ready to hit the road on Wednesday.  But, not surprisingly after the day we’d had we just hit the beers and sank, exhausted onto the couch.  We decided to enjoy one last day in a solid bed and tackle moving into our new home after a good night’s sleep!

Apologies for the mega-blog entry but there were times that day when I really felt we had bitten off more than we could chew and the dream was not going to become a reality.  The fact that we had to     overcome so much adversity now makes the result even sweeter.