Meltdown Monday

Monday was a tough day for me.  I was feeling punk, as my dad used to say, with a little post nasal drip and the beginnings of a cough.  Bob and I took a drive to run some errands, leaving right before lunchtime. We went to the grocery store, then to the library to use their wifi.  We did some business, then headed home.  

My personal goal for the day was to somewhere, somehow find a Texas motor vehicles (called DPS here) to schedule our road tests. At least if we are stopped while driving our MH with only learners permits we can show that we have appointments. I have been told that many DPS sites are not taking road test appointments until February of 2015. Since we are leaving TX in January, this was not good news, because without a valid license we would not be covered by insurance in the event of an accident.

It's not easy to schedule appointments under the conditions we have. We had a list of DPS offices, but phone calls to them resulted in the caller being told that "due to unusually high call volume we are unable to speak to you at this time--please call back later."  I was unable to find a list anywhere of offices that offer road tests for CDL licenses, and using my cell phone with the tiny buttons and sloooooooooow loading of pages was frustrating in the extreme.  I finally called the Escapees (a traveling club for RVers that we belong to) and the woman I spoke with was very helpful. And calming, because I was really starting to stress over this! She gave me a number to the Livingston, TX DPS and after (no exaggeration) 36 tries, I got to a real person. This agent told me how to figure out which offices had the test and was sympathetic, and said the only way to do this was to go online and try to register for a road test for each town in which we could possibly take it.

At this point I was ready to scream.  What a stupid system!  A bad word or two MAY have fallen from my lips.  I don't know. I have blocked it out--you'd have to ask Bob. 

I put on my big girl panties and soldiered on, sitting with a map and figuring out the general route we'd be taking from Mission to Arizona.  McAllen, the closest to Mission, was making appointments for mid-February.  Five or six others were also a no-go.  Then I tried Laredo and BINGO! Morning openings for Friday January 2 for both of us. It took well over an hour just to make those appointments on my iPhone as it kept freezing on me, but we got them!

Laredo is an easy 136 miles from Mission, so it fits perfectly with our schedule of leaving January 1st.  Hopefully we will both be all set with our licenses before leaving Texas.  Keep fingers crossed for us!