Ed getting ready to park so we can enjoy a nice dinner out. Yes, we saw the sign, but were just passing through to the OTHER part of the lot...the one without a sign!“There ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough, to keep me from getting to you…”
This is how I feel about the places I want to go to while in our truck. Almost nothing stops me from shopping where I want, dining where I want, sightseeing where I want, or parking where I want. OK, maybe not always parking where I want, but all the rest, you bet!
I look at it this way – my money is green and it spends like everyone else’s, and if I’m there to spend my money, they damn well better have a place for me to park. I know they get trucks in these places, how else do you think they get the stuff they sell?
As I write this, I’m sitting in a Home Depot parking lot in a really beautiful neighborhood. I went to lunch at a new restaurant today, hit the grocery store in the same shopping plaza, and then went to a Red Box to pick up two movies for tonight.
A few days ago, I went to the local mall. I bought a new purse, a ring for my cousin’s birthday, hit the food court with Ed and then went out to dinner. Earlier in the day I went to the bank (at another strip mall in the neighborhood), the post office, and popped into the local real estate office to check out the land for sale in the area. All while driving our truck.
I’ve had several people ask me, “How do you get into these places??” Sure, the property owners sometimes make it a little difficult; strategically placed “decorative” rocks, trees encircled by a bed of flowers below, curbs. But there’s almost always a way in, even with a trailer. And if I can’t get in, I have a secret weapon – Ed. He can back into a thimble and his parking skills are unmatched. He not only saves me when I pull into a place I can’t seem to get out of, but he also pulls into the places I only dream of going.
We don’t always go undetected; often we’re met by the security staff, either when we’re getting ourself situated in a parking spot, or when they knock on our door shortly thereafter. In the seven years I’ve been doing this, I’m happy to say we rarely, if ever, get kicked out. I attribute our success to the fact that we come across as very atypical truck drivers. Our truck is always clean, we’re always dressed nicely and when we talk to the security personnel, we tell them what we’re up to. And we’re nice about it. On the occasion they say, “You know you can’t stay here overnight.” clearly expecting to get a fight from us. I respond with “We’re not planning on staying overnight, we’re just going in to get a bite to eat and shop a little.” They almost always say, “Oh, okay. No problem. Enjoy.” And when we do need to stay overnight, we’ve become adept at identifying the places that won’t be a problem. Because we’re self-contained (bathroom, shower, kitchen, etc.) we don’t really need to stay at a truckstop, and if we can avoid it, we do.
A few months ago we met our friends for dinner; we were headed west and they were headed east, so we planned on meeting in the middle. We agreed on a spot, which we had gotten to first and were already parked, waiting for them to arrive. When we saw their truck, we flagged them down and pointed to where they should pull in. As Greg entered the lot, I met him at the driver’s side window and told him to pull around the back of the building. He looked at me like I was crazy, but did as he was told. Once around the building, he saw where we were parked and snuggled up right next to our truck. Two semis, parked side by side, in a tiny lot, at a local restaurant. He was amazed. When we told him we did this all the time, he was in awe. They wanted to know our secret, our tricks.
There might be a few tricks, but there are no secrets. If I want to go to The Fashion Mall in Carmel, Indiana (they have a Nordstrom!) and then dine at Maggiano’s (which is right next door), I do. If I want to hit the Barnes & Noble in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, I do. If I’m jonesin’ for Dunkin’ Donuts anywhere on the east coast, where spaces are tight, Ed makes it happen. We even spent two weeks in Key West, Florida (if you’ve ever been there, you know how tiny the streets and neighborhoods are) by asking the manager of a nationwide chain store if we could park our truck in the back of his lot. I gave him my card, told him to feel free to call if anything changed, and walked out of that store with a smile on my face. And a place to park. For FREE.
It’s the few bad apples in the bunch that make it hard for the rest of us, but if you make an effort to present yourself in a professional manner, keeping yourself and your equipment looking like you belong, there’s a chance you’ll be welcome anywhere.
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