Back in 2012 I didn’t spot a single new plate after July 31. Now, whenever August rolls around I wonder nervously if that’s it for the year. My first August plate comes as a big relief.

This August was stellar. This August I spotted my first Montana plate since 2011. Missouri and Kansas showed up too: good catches both.

Montana was in the back parking lot at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. The Spirituals Choir I’m in rehearses in the rec room at Windemere, the adjacent nursing home. Coming out of rehearsal, I spotted a plate I didn’t immediately recognize, partly because it was obscured by the bike rack on the back of the car — an older Subaru Outback, I noted with approval. So I moved in closer.

Montana! A plain-jane Montana, white on blue, no pretty design. Across the bottom it said “Veterans.”

After crowing about my find on Facebook, I learned that the Outback belonged to a hospital staffer who was leaving the island on Sunday. I caught it on a Thursday evening. I also learned that the West Virginia I spotted in June, also in the hospital parking lot, belongs to a travel nurse who comes to the Vineyard occasionally to work in maternity.

Kansas and Missouri were good catches too. I don’t get them every year. But Montana!

There are still seven plates outstanding, which is about par for the end of summer. I’ve heard that Alaska is here, and Nevada isn’t all that rare. We’ll see what we see between now and the end of the year.