Jumping through hoops

It's what I had to do to plate the new (to me) trailer, jump through some hoops. This trailer was originally first titled here in Colorado then the person I bought it from took it to Minnesota when they moved there back in 2005. I was thinking that perhaps DMV could just use all the previous information from then but I was told they "purged" that when it was titled in Minnesota.

So now I have to get the trailer, have it weighed empty and then get the vin # verified so it could be registered here. I don't know if you've heard this or not but there's this book of yellow pages that is supposed to list businesses so you can find one an visit it. So I'm looking for a certified scale in Denver and what do I find, yup, nothing. Then I heard about this thing called the internet and decided to give it a try. I used this search tool called google and typed in certified scales in Colorado and what happened, yup nothing. The results come up with anything certified, anything scales and lots of Colorado but no places to get a certified weight. With each attempt I tried all kinds of phrases, public scales (you get reptile results), public scales in Colorado (you get CDOT scales), and so on until I sent up the white flag and stopped. My last attempt was to search for truck stops with no luck, I even called the state troopers office where they directed me to another web site that actually has a list of certified public scales for me to call. So I called one and sure enough they do certified weights, it's $8 and come on down we can get it done for you. So now I'm off with the trailer, still with inadequate mirrors to get the thing weighed but it's not too far of a drive, sweet. As I'm driving down to the truck stop I drive by a certified scale on the other side of the road, note it and continue on to the truck stop.

Now I'm at the intersection where the truck stop is and there are 7 semi's waiting to get into the truck stop for what ever reason with a line of traffic behind them waiting to get in as well. Remember that certified scale I told you about, now I'm thinking I should just go there, only one vehicle there to get weighed. But I'm thinking, can I do a U-turn with this truck and trailer? I look and think, and look again at traffic, none coming so I give it a shot. Wow!! I can do a U-turn in this thing and I'm off to the other scale.

I get there and only one vehicle being weighed, a camper trailer, and it took the guy about 30 minutes to do this (I'm thinking newbie here). I pulled in behind him and waited, then a semi pulled up, then another and yet another. I let one of the trucks go on next then the weigher waved me on. I had to drop the trailer, pull the truck off the scale wait for the signal then hook back up to the trailer and I have my weight, 4240# (heavier than I thought).

Now with weight ticket in hand I head off to DMV to get the vin verified and get my plates which actually went pretty quickly and cheaply all things considered. There was an interesting moment while the clerk was inputting the data where she had a puzzled look. She then confirmed that the trailer was coming from Minnesota, yes it was, then asked "was it originally from Colorado?". You'll remember that it was, so that information now shows up on the computer (purged remember). Well all this made a difference in the cost because when that information showed up it was now cheaper for the plates.

Like I said, jumping through hoops, call me the circus pony.