Good morning Steemers!
It's already a bit past ten this Sunday morning and as I peek out the window of Nellybelle I see the day starting a bit hazy and most likely a bit cool. I haven't yet poked my head outside to check, but if things go as they have been trending, it'll peak near sixty degrees today. The thing about living in the high mountain meadows is that the high temp for the day only lasts a couple hours. The mountains start cutting out the Sun as soon as it moves a bit toward the west in the early afternoon. This was a HUGE benefit to me when my little buddy Bandit was still around because I only had to be concerned about the van getting too hot for him during those two hours. It was only necessary to find a bit of shade during the early afternoon in order to keep him from getting uncomfortable and the one tree-shaded spot in the 7-11 lot where I worked sufficed nicely. Bandit passed around Easter this year of uncontrollable seizures (at age 14). Once it became clear the meds weren't effective I had to make a heart wrenching decision to have him peacefully euthanized at a local shelter.
I worked and parked (with permission) for nearly two years at a 7-11 here in Fort Collins. I used to joke with customers that it was a 'work from home' opportunity for me. In all of that time I was never late, and only called in 'sick' one day in order to tend to the affairs of my ailing pet. It's pretty difficult to call in sick when you are physically living in your minivan fifty feet from the front door to the store!!! LOL. I really never tried to hide the fact that I was living in the lot when I was working in the store because I knew over time it would become obvious to the locals anyway. Sure I had permission from the owners of the store, but there's still the issue of it being illegal to live in your vehicle here. It doesn't help that this is a VERY upscale area and 'poverty and homelessness' stick out like a sore thumb. Add to the mix all the youthful nincompoops who come here because weed is legal and then realize they can't actually afford to be here. I owe all these miscreants a big thank you because if not for their high visibility hijinks the cops would have more time to focus on me. As it stands, I've collected about half a dozen 'business cards' from local law enforcement types who've approached me over that timespan.
I do my best to try and limit those encounters, but like I said, this is not only a very upscale place but it's also a college town so the cops in the area are already attuned to students trying to escape high dorm fees by doing what I'm doing. It was just a couple months ago that I had a young fellow tap on my window when I was down the road 'overnighting' at a different spot than my 7-11 sanctuary. I'd probably never sleep anywhere else but the 7-11 if there was free wifi at this spot. I pay for a bit of bandwidth thru a cell router but it's not nearly enough to tend to the social media stuff I keep track of (let alone produce and upload) The young cop said he was just checking to make sure I wasn't a serial killer or something. I joked with him a bit and told him to make sure the serial killers didn't get me! I handed him a card off my dash as he handed me his, and I told him to subscribe to me on social media if he wanted to keep an eye on me. It wasn't until the next morning that I looked at the card he handed me. Even though I was in a private parking lot miles from the college campus I noted he was a CAMPUS SECURITY cop. Turns out they have extremely wide jurisdiction in this city. My favorite cop contact story concerns a cop who rolled up on me in a lot down the road and before he could get out of his vehicle to 'check on me' the owner of the store in front of the lot where I was parked came rushing out to chase the cop away on my behalf. Turns out it wouldn't have been necessary because the cop recognized me from having accosted me in the park a few days earlier. I was doing one of my normal Daily Dose of Tim 'dinner at the park' Youtube videos when some uptight jerk decided to call the cops on me because there were kids around. Can't be too careful you know.
Unlike so many of the vanlife folks, I don't bounce around the country like a BB in an empty paint can, finding a new spot every few days that is many miles from the last one. My years at the counter of 7-11 have limited my ability to 'hide in plain sight around here anymore'. My 'stealth' strategy involves keeping my precious Nellybelle as nondescript and stock as possible. No solar, no roof mounted items and no rear deck with a canister of propane and no generator. Good tires, proper plates and insurance. Driver's license in good standing. No outstanding warrants. BASICS!!! Handling cops? Well, I employ a layered approach on this. First off, the interior of my van is tighter than Dick's hatband. I've spent the last couple years retrofitting the inside in a style I like to refer to as "the inside of Jeannie's bottle". It's not cluttered. Everything has a place. The culmination of two odd years of ergonomic adjustment. These cops roll up on so many derelict asswipes that when they do find time to roll up on me they're generally so shocked at the level of comfort and sophistication that I have achieved under such difficult circumstances that they just move on. It helps that I am always clean shaven and present myself with the demeanor of a corporate exec (old habits...). If I were in an environment where race was an issue I'd say that my success partly hinges on 'white privilege' but there aren't the racial issues here in Colorado that plague the South. I'm convinced the reason I'm allowed to get by is that I'm intelligent, well spoken and demonstrating a level of survival sophistication these cops aren't used to dealing with.
I'm going to be forced out of my 7-11 spot altogether at year's end when the ownership of the store changes. I've been welcomed to stay here until then, even though I got fired from my job the day after the solar eclipse for asking a coworker out to lunch. That amounts to sexual harassment if you're a minimum wage employee these days! Ain't life grand! I ask an old gal out to lunch and lose my job over it while the high and mighty 'grab em by the pussy' with nary a care in the world. The owner who fired me did so because she felt she had to (EEOC bullshit and all). The gal who complained about me lasted all of ten days. Since the owner has decided to sell at the end of the year there's little incentive for me to return to the job at this point and as I mentioned in an earlier post, my SS survivors benefits kick in soon as I chase down my marriage license.
Enjoy.