Unless you’re living under a rock, you’re probably aware that a change went into effect two months ago, requiring you to have “REAL ID” in order to get on a domestic flight, or enter a government building, or check out Limerick’s nuclear power plant, if that’s on your bucket list.
If you don’t have REAL ID via your driver’s license, you can use an active passport instead, which isn’t that big of a deal but requires you to carry something domestically that you would normally only use internationally. And foreign travel isn’t as big here as it is elsewhere in the United States, because why go to Europe when you can go to Wildwood again this summer?
Anyway, I’m reading the REAL ID requirements on the PennDOT site. Provide a birth certificate or social security card, proof of residence, yadda yadda. No problem. I’ll just bring this recently-renewed passport and use it to get REAL ID on the driver’s license, then I’m covered with both. Then you scroll down to “ways to apply” and it lists 15 REAL ID centers in the Commonwealth. In our region, there’s KOP, Norristown, and Southwest Philly. Meh okay, but if you keep scrolling it says “Additional locations to get your REAL ID,” and you put in your zip code and it gives you a list. Right up the street is the Harleysville location, so I gather my documents and drive up Sumneytown Pike…