par-king

the art of picking a parking spot, version 1.o.

trust me, theres something of an art to doing this. its not an easy thing.

for the past 22 days "on the road" - a good half of them have involved mysteriously rolling in to a town that is relatively unknown and finding a place to sleep. this involves parking the car, clearing out the back sleeping quarters, potentially eating a meal and urinating and then having a pleasant rest. this doesnt really seem to present a huge problem or dilemma, right? or does it?

i will try to illustrate my point herein.

there's approximately three types of towns we have traversed-- what i like to categorize in one of three ways:

a sleepy town - you could probably get by sleeping in the parking lot of the local wal-mart if need be.

an adamant town - this is the place with millions of signs littering the city reading "no overnight parking" or "no public camping" or "no parking 2am - 6am." these locales demand creativity.

a city slicker - the lights are always on. these towns seem to have lights all over the place which inherently make it difficult to sleep in the back of a car no matter what the circumstances.

see now, this is an interesting topic worth writing about because you absolutely have to get sleep. there is just no getting around it. you can go without eating hot food for a long time. you can give up television. you can, uncomfortably at times, give up your bed. you can give up time with your friends and family.

sleep on the other hand, well, you gotta have it.

so here lies the dilemma: many nights we roll in to some mysterious town, typically it is past 8 pm and usually very dark. we are usually pretty tired from having had something of a long day on the road. sometimes we are hungry, sometimes we are not. we always need to piss.

there are many considerations to be made:

1) we have two bikes strapped to the front of the car that given some craftsmanship and stealth-like behavior (think ninjas, wizards or smooth operators) could easily be stolen.
2) we need to be able have free and clear urination capability through the night in case of emergency pissing requirements.
3) its nice to have power to cook up some noodles, but this is certainly not a requirement.
4) internet is a plus so that i can slave away writing blogs, but again-- not a requirement.
5) streetlights, parking lot lights, motion sensitive lights, frequent headlights, light from fires, light from the moon or particularly active early morning sun, house lights, flood lights are all deterrants to the sleeping process. cities typically contain some of the aforementioned items and demand creativity.
6) farming behavior or similar activity is typically a no-no in that this will cause disruption and a call to the local police at around 5am when farmer bob goes to tend to his wheat patch.
7) dogs-- no matter what type, size, color, weight or sexual orientation-- will always fuck up a sleeping plan two-fold: they keep you up and they alert their owner that some heathens are trying to crash in the back of their pickup truck outside their street.
8) people, no matter how nice they are, never like the idea of strangers inhabiting their residential street.

these are 8 conditions seen the most but is by no means an exhaustive list.

another wrench in the system is typically the impatience that builds up after trying to find a spot for anything more than 17 minutes. anything longer than this breeds frustration. frustration eventually breeds anger. one must be very careful so as to not let one of the eight conditions outlined above ruin the plan. it becomes very easy after anger sets in to throw your hands up and settle for anything. but this is simply not good enough.

my recommendation as a result of such issues is something like this:

for sleepy towns, dont be foolish and go for the low-hanging fruit at the local wal-mart. you will never get a good night's sleep with the walton's shining their parking lights down on you. those things are stronger than you think. no beanie will block the rays of said lights and curtains wont even be able to shake a stick at them. unfortunately, i left my silk eye cover at home. sleepy towns demand residential street sleeping. you will want to look for each of the following:

i) a neighborhood having houses with at least 32 feet of clearance between each (forget townhomes, condo lots, etc).
ii) as few dogs as possible. these little fellas (like in most situations) will be the demise of any good plan.
iii) given its status as a sleepy-town, watch out for farming activity. (we found ourselves in huntington, utah sleeping next to a horse grazing area. this scared the bejesus out of me as i was brushing my teeth)
iv) as few neighbors as possible-- should they spot you in the morning they will undoubtedly inquire about your existence on their street. this can be an awesome conversation, terribly awkward or just downright miserable based on the police call that will ensue.

that being said, adament towns are typically a similar situation. the authorities are well aware of the fact that they are patrolling a frequently tourist-littered town. this means they have on problem busting your ass and take great pride in being the pisser on your parade. these towns demand serious creativity. its best to sleep near a highway, in the open if possible. when the officer knocks on your window you cite the following, word for word.

"good evening officer. can you tell me the time?"

(he tells you the time and likely acts like an enormous asshole threatening you with a citation and potentially time in the local jail for trespassing)

"i can certainly understand your position, officer. let me just mention a few things. i have been driving here for over 8 hours and to be completely honest with you, i could not keep my eyes open any longer. i didnt want to endanger anyone's life and i pulled over to take a snooze about 45 minutes ago. i will happily move on."

(he will likely shake his head and ask where you are going)

"of course. we are headed to _____." make your destination no less than 45 miles away but absolutely no more than 63 miles.

(with any good luck the officer will take off).

alternatively, you could park at the local dive bar. when the police show up to question you, you will have to wholeheartedly tell them that you drank a little too much and didn't want to drive drunk. i am on the fence as to which plan is better.

now, switching gears slightly to a city slicker. these towns demand creativity. you are going to have to hide, and hide well. hide from light and from people. this takes some skill. a helpful suggestion: sidestreets near hotels shaded by trees are usually good bets. this way you cant be towed for violating the rules of the hotel parking lot, but if authorities or casual bystanders notice a car that is clearly driven by tourists (remember: bikes strapped to the front) it will seem plausible they are parked near the hotel as they are staying there for the night.

i cant really tell you why i am writing this-- could be the fact that i am completely pleased sitting in a jackson hole cofffee house and i dont want to do so much as pick my head up from the activity that my laptop screen offers.

it could be that i have had too much coffee and my fixation on anything that involves typing at extremely high speeds and blinking a lot is great fun.

it could be that picking a spot to sleep last night in jackson hole was something of a feat and when i was writing in my journal today i thought it would be funny to write this overly official manifesto on the art of picking a good parking spot.

it could be that i am feeling rather jovial today and i thought it would be fun to write something that was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek joke.

or it is just all of the above.

i cant even really say that i have had encounters with police at all on the trip, but that seemed like how it would roll out given my experience with law enforcement officials and others stories.

maybe this is just something of a daydream.