October 19, 2018

The "joys" of breaking into big cities with the Land Yacht

We planned fairly well.  We were going to spend Saturday night somewhere near Ventura,   Sunday morning we were going to sneak across the top of Los Angeles thus avoiding any severe traffic on the way to the Fortuna, CA RV repair place.  Surely Ventura would be far enough out of the big city to avoid what we call "Urban Jungle Camping Syndrome"!  Nope.

This syndrome can be described as sparse, expensive, uncomfortable RV parking that comes with a plethora of rules and regulations   Only the bold without pets driving newer rigs and with lots of money to spare dare participate.  As one would expect the majorly of populated areas do not have much land mass to dedicate for RV usage.  There just isn't enough RV parking to go around.  This allows the existing parks to become exclusive.

In Ventura the only commercial park wanted $106/night.  For obvious reasons there was availability.  Others wouldn't allow pets.  Still others were long term contracts only.  There was one on a dried up lake in the hills that might have worked but they had a 2 night minimum stay.

In Portland we were told that our RV was too old at some parks.  There was a two week maximum stay due to regulations.  Most of the inner city parks had inches only between rigs.  At times especially weekends and holidays we had to travel many miles out of town in order to camp for one night.  In Seattle and San Francisco you had to commute to the city.  Even doing the commute you had to survive in questionable neighborhoods.

Heavy traffic can get uncomfortable in the big cities.  You leave extra room in front of you so that you can bring the 25 tons to a stop if needed.  The more room that you leave, the more that people try to fill the space in front of you.   In New York near the city someone ran their vehicle into our side verses merging with traffic.  Size matters; the collision felt like another bump in the road.  We hardly noticed. 
\
Another problem is quick yellow lights with red light cameras.  If one is going with the traffic there is now way to get stopped that quickly.  Our current GPS was made for RVs and warns of the red light cameras.  Our goal is to stay far away from city traffic if possible.  There are plenty of areas with lots of room; unless you are hanging in southern California, Washington DC, or near New York City.

So a couple of extra days on the Air Force Base won't be so bad.  The 200 mile trip across the top of LA will be a challenge.  I had better start working out!

Thanks for reading.