Normal?

As I’m standing in the rear door of my camper, I can’t help but wonder, “How weird am I?”  How many other people can say that on a random Wednesday night they’re in the parking lot of a high school they didn’t know existed a few hours ago with the intention of staying the night?  I’m sure this kind of idea pops up for every RVer at some point, or at least the strange ones like me that are somewhat untraditional.

My destination today of course was not this particular lot.  I actually gambled and used FreeCampsites.net to try to find a location that was in nature instead of a lot, but it didn’t work out.  Three times.  Yep, I struck out three times today trying to find a nice scenic spot.  The first one had a bridge with a 4 ton weight limit I couldn’t cross (I weigh about 5 tons).  I then got to back up a windy, single-lane gravel road, uphill, for a good long while.  Thank the gods for backup cameras and proper tow mirrors!

The second and third sites both suffered from the same problem: No Signal.  None.  Not even 3G.  I can’t stay at those kinds of places while I’m trying to get work done and need to be available for clientele.  Someday when I release responsibility for the emergency needs of my clients, I’ll be able to use that kind of location, but not yet.  Right now, I have to maintain that income to fund all these projects.

The truck and camper are both working well.  So well in fact, I have time to think about other things, like what my priorities are, what I want to do, and where or why I want to go to any particular place.  I don’t really have good answers for most of those questions at this point, but it’s nice to have the space and time to let those items simmer.

On to other topics: Remember the JCPenny stop last night?  Yeah, that didn’t work out so well.  About 10pm a rent-a-cop knocked on my door and asked me to move on.  He was very nice about it, said that he didn’t make up the rules just had to work by them.  I rode down the street a mile or two, found a chinese restaurant and a fair level spot in its parking lot, and spent the night there.  Nobody bothered me there, I figured they wouldn’t be waking me up too early since they didn’t open until 11am.

Which then brings us to tonight’s location: a high school parking lot (39.37098, -101.04669).  And as I write that, I can see how it could obviously be a bit creepy: some random guy staying in his truck camper at a high school were (technically) children frequent. Of course, it is the middle of summer and school isn’t in session, and the place is deserted with nobody here, but yes, the whole idea did come up.  It’s possible that I’ll get another knock tonight, we’ll see.  The reason I picked this place is because it was visible from the Walmart I had found and planned on staying at.  The high school is a bit further back from the highway, and the parking lot is obviously much quieter.

Tomorrow I’ll continue on towards the west coast, but not after getting a few hours of work done first.  As anticipated, work is picking up, so I have to stay on top of that.