Sunday, March 16, 2008

Staying a few nights

The other night I found a parking spot that was so good, safe, quiet, and sunny (and has lots of WiFi), that I've stayed here for two days now.

I now know what Tara was talking about-- being "van sour" and feeling stuck to the van and unable to leave it for fear of it getting stolen or burglarized. With the van's engine partially disassembled, it was wonderful to get out of the thing and just walk around instead of driving. I do love walking and I do not like driving.

I really love staying more than one day and night in the same parking spot. I really hate burning up fuel, money, and time searching for a spot and worrying about getting ticketed or hassled. And I really hate having to put everything away and batten down the hatches in preparation for getting underway. Man that gets tiring every single day. I like being disorderly and leaving stuff out wherever it's convenient, and I do not like cleaning things up and putting things away.

Once I find a good spot, I want to stay in it for a while. Alas, I can't do that in the City because it would invite hassles from cops, robbers, or both.

My long-term goal is to find a parking spot that I can stay in for months or years at a time, somewhere that is safe and quiet and has many things within walking distance, and then hardly ever drive again. Maybe build or buy an electric scooter or even do an electric car conversion, and dock it to the van for charging (after adding more solar panels-- I've got plenty of room for them).

I looked on Craigslist and parking spaces are US$200-300/month. For a parking space. Ugh. I guess my dream will have to wait until I find a freebie or trade, which will happen eventually.

2 comments:

nothing said...

I'm wondering why you couldn't offer your services to a couple of business owners in exchange for overnight parking privileges? You could, say, park in an mechanic's parking lot or on the grounds of some contstruction site to provide added security. If you get lucky, you might get a small bit of pay out of it!

Just a thought!

Walden on Wheels said...

I thought about that.

I'd have to know the person first before offering. Otherwise, walking in off the street, it sounds a bit too much like extortion: "Hey, nice business you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it. Let me park here and I'll make sure it's safe.". If I were the business owner I'd be very, very suspicious of anyone making an offer like that.

If I end up with a part-time job somewhere, then, if the employer is cool enough, I might be able to ask.