Blizz and Bob raise some good points, so I will try to clarify. First, I would not be doing this if I thought I had a better option. I have a son with a low IQ and learning disabilities who will probably never be able to support himself. I also have an ex-wife who will do her best to turn in him into a lap dog and then use him to extract money for the rest of my life. He will be an adult soon, but even if her claims have no legal basis I can expect to spend the rest of my life defending myself in court. That’s not a life worth living for him or me.
If I go underground I can invite him along, but I can’t force the decision. If he joins me then we might just have a chance to see some of this country, and along the way I might be able to give him some options for earning a living that are within his capacity. His mother can hire all the lawyers she wants, but she will have to find me first.
I figure I have maybe 10 good years left, but it’s not about me anymore. I don’t feel like the government should have to support any of us, least of all my ex, but I can’t stop the libs from giving her money. What I can try to do is give my son a chance by setting him up with a low cost lifestyle and some employment options. If he won’t accept that then at least I can leave him with some cash by reducing my expenses.
None of this would be my first choice, or is even in line with my nature. Most people dislike change and fear the unknown, and I am not that unusual. I am facing a future full of unknowns, and if you haven’t figured it out by now, my nature is to plan and minimize risk. Like I said before, if this lifestyle doesn’t appeal to you, and I can certainly understand why it would not, then I hope you always have better choices.
As for the specifics, like where will I park without getting rousted all the time, I don’t claim to fully know. I have never stealth camped in my life. All I know is what I have read, and what seems reasonable. Others claim that if you show up in a quiet urban neighborhood shortly before bed time, and then quietly hit the sack, you won’t even be noticed. There are also K-mart and Walmart parking lots that often actively invite campers. I know I have seen several regulars at the K-mart near my home.
Mostly I see no reason to camp in urban areas. Not when there are quiet country roads with turnouts and wide shoulders with hardly anyone around. There is also BLM land, and national forest land. I do have some experience with hang gliding that involves dusty logging roads to unimproved camp sites with no services and no fees. I am also told that there are minimum wage jobs being a park ranger that often go unfilled at the most remote locations. There is also the high desert of California and Nevada where I am told transients often settle for the winter. Oregon or Washington are more popular in the summer.
It would not surprise me if many camp grounds refused me, not that I want to spend much time there. I hear that some camp grounds are refusing admittance to even nice RV’s that happen to be over 10 years old. I can’t say that I will miss their snooty attitude.
I would not want to spend the night at a rest area. I understand the thieves hang around and pray on the uninformed that make that mistake. I might occasionally end up at a truck stop, if I am making an extended trip to the Midwest or down south, but mostly I don’t see the appeal of being “pickle parked” as geofkaye calls it. I hear that truck stops are at least relatively safe though. I would not want to hide out in the warehouse district as it might well be noisy in the AM and possibly unsafe in the PM.
As for the Spartan accommodations, well that’s fair. A friend of mine refers to my truck as a mobile prison cell. I’ve never been in a prison cell, so I wouldn’t know, but it has a door and I have the key. I don’t see any reason to hide out in the truck all day. There are lots of things to do and see, and between school, and work, and just being poor, I never felt like I had the option. I have one last chance to change all that. Besides, at night, with my eyes closed, the truck is all but infinite.
As for being bored, well I don’t think I could blame that on living in a truck. I would think it would be easier to get bored tied to one spot. Perhaps it is more fair to say being tired of being on the move all the time. I wonder if that would be any worse than being tired of working umpteen hours a week with no future, or being tired of supporting a parasite of an ex wife. I suspect that happiness is more internal than external, and that I will be my own grumpy self no matter what.
I do have my paranoid fears, like breaking down in the middle of nowhere, or getting towed and not having access to my home or belongings. I suspect that those fears are overblown. I will be researching roadside service contracts, and generally taking pains not to piss off the locals.
All this will end somehow, somewhere, but we all knew that.
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