RV PARKING RAGE

I hesitate to tell this story. Readers might get the idea that I’m getting crotchety in my aging process. Truly that is not the case. I think my problem might be my vicinity to an aging population lately. We spent a wonderful few days in one of Arizona’s most beautiful “Sky Islands” high above Green Valley, Arizona. Being winter, we enjoyed sunny warm days and cold nights in Madera Canyon’s Bog Springs National Forest Campground. We love these out of the way, hard to reach, NF campgrounds for the solitude they offer, the beautiful locations, and the dark quiet nights. Because the campground is located a half-mile up a rough, little maintained, mountain road, few RVers are willing to negotiate it for the prize location we find at the summit. This is another reason to have a rig that is not too big to squeeze into hundreds of great government sites. 

The problem started when we left our mountain utopia and ventured into the valley below. The land of Oscar the Grouch. We decided to head for Patagonia, AZ, but first thought we would stop at the Green Valley Library book sale and get some reading material. It was early in the morning and we found a huge, mall type parking lot behind the library. The sign said it was the White Elephant Thrift Store but other buildings looked like Sheriff, Road Commission, county type stuff. We were the only vehicle in the lot. I parked horizontally, taking up five spaces. I was way out at the edge of the lot in nobody’s way. It was an hour until the library would open so we sat and ate breakfast. Quickly, over the next hour, every lot slot in the parking area filled. We were amazed. A line was forming at the White Elephant Thrift door. Soon the Golden Girls blocked me in from the front and Archie and Edith blocked me in from the back. 

When the hundreds of lot slots were filled, people started parking out on both sides of the street. 

I thought I was just imagining the looks we were getting from people walking by. Could my five spaces be that important in a sea of overflowing vehicles that clearly had to flood the nearby roads whether I was squatting here or not. I went on a recon mission. I discovered they were all here for the White Elephant Thrift Store. It wasn’t a once a year sale. This thing goes on six days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. It is more popular than Walmart at Christmas. When I got back to the motor home I discovered I had not been imagining the “LOOK.” The head of the Geritol Posse knocked at our door. At first I thought it was the Sheriff. Brown shirt with official arm patches, khaki pants, shiny gold badge and radio. My first clue she was White Elephant Security was the fact that she wasn’t packin’ any heat. 

When she said, “You have to move. You are taking up five spaces”, I could see the panic in Gaila’s face. She thought I was going to go into my raving jailhouse lawyer mode. It was true that I was breaking no law. I had every right to be parked where I was. I could have given this female Broderick Crawford much grief, but I could also see the strain in her face. Coming out and telling me I must move was the last thing she wanted to be doing, but the Golden Girls and several other complaints forced her from her better judgement. I could have unhooked, parked the car and motor home separately and vertically. That would have really blocked the lot. I know that would have sent her into a panic. So instead of being Mr. Hyde, I decided to be Dr. Jekyll. I told her I couldn’t squeeze out until she had one of her complainers move their vehicle. The word was out. I had been evicted. Cars were already vying for position to take my five spaces. When she got the car behind me moved, I still could not exit the parking lot until she made those crowding for the slots, like vultures on a fresh kill, to move on past. They did not want to lose their positions. Because of poor eyesight, I could tell many had taken their Vytorin in combination with their Viagra at breakfast and it had hardened their heart. They wanted to string me up but couldn’t find a tall enough cactus. We finally eased on down the road and found a gas station that said we could drop the rig for a couple hours. We went back to the library and later explored the White Elephant store. I saw my Rent-a-Cop friend and told her I had parked down in Nogales, Mexico and wondered if that was far enough. She got a chuckle out of that and hoped I would never come back to Green Valley, Arizona. No chance of that!  --Keep Smilin’, Dick E. Bird