Yes, it’s been a while since the last license plate report: five months to be almost exact. Here’s my excuse. No, make that plural: Here are my excuses.

You’ll notice from the map that though I had one sighting a month in September, October, and November, there’s nothing on the map for July and August. The island is swarming with out-of-state cars in the high-summer months, but this year I was not swarming with them. The #1 reason is that my inspection sticker expired at the end of June.

That’s a story in itself: blame it on pressing deadlines and very, very long lines at my usual no-appointment-needed inspection station. I figured the lines would get shorter in early July, once my deadlines were met and I had time to wait several hours in line — but then my usual inspection station stopped doing inspections “indefinitely.”

Uh-oh. Most inspection stations on the island only do inspections by appointment. As you can guess, summer is a terrible time to get an appointment. After calling around, I took the best one I could get: for September 24. So for almost three months, I was driving around with an expired sticker. As you can guess, I was very cautious. I did my errands as close to home as possible. And I didn’t go one mile an hour over any speed limit. I was also lucky.

Malvina Forester passed inspection on the appointed day. Whew. The “6” on the sticker is for June, my usual inspection month. You don’t get free months for being a scofflaw. Fine with me. In 2025 I’ll be making my appointment well before June arrives.

Being legal on the road again was a big relief, and it paid off in license plate sightings: Kentucky in September! Hawaii in October!! And at the Ag Hall for the Artisans’ Fair on the very last day of November, what should I spot but West Virginia!!!

So as December gets under way, we’re down to four holdouts: South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Arkansas. The first three are all among the perennial holdouts. Arkansas isn’t exactly common, but it’s the most likely of the four. OTOH, I once spotted Nebraska parked outside the West Tisbury church during the last week of December, so I’m not giving up.