parking etiquette

Just a short little grumble here and also to tell on myself just a little because I kind of stuck my foot in it again.



Now in some areas of the country you have no choice but to park in a rest area to sleep because unfortunately parking spots can be kind of scarce for vehicles 60 feet plus in length but TN on I40 between Brownsville and Hurricane Mills (approx. mm 56-143) is NOT one of those areas.

Tonight I had planned on making a pitstop at the 143 but too much coffee and water pretty much made that impossible, :-) and I found myself having to stop at the itsy-bitsy, teensy-weensy rest area at the 130 mile marker. Now considering that it was approx 2100 I knew it was going to be a gamble on finding a slot open but I had to check anyway (getting desperate, don't know why it couldn't have hit me back at the 126).

To my surprise there was actually one spot open and while it was going to be a tight squeeze I knew that I could maybe wiggle the truck in there. Which brings me to one of my complaints, there was one big truck that for some unknown reason didn't pull forward far enough to leave room behind him yet wasn't far enough forward to make getting into the only open spot easy for the next person. This happens quite a lot by the way where you have 1 driver parking in a way that will take up 2-3 spaces.

Fortunately this guy hadn't gone to bed yet (still sitting in the driver's seat) and when he saw me trying to parallel park, he called out over the cb to let me know that he was going to back up and give me room. This wasn't necessarily being nice on his part, after all if he'd been more considerate he wouldn't have been taking up 2.5 spaces in the first place. I think it was more of a fear that I was going to back into him. But, hey, at least he was polite enough to back up.

This is where I stick said foot in mouth, told him thanks, that I appreciated it and that it would have been difficult maneuvering into the spot because of the way he was parked. Now I never meant that last little bit to actually be uttered out loud even if it was true. Somethings you should just keep to yourself esp. at night in a rest area. You could tell it peeved him but hey, at least it got him parked correctly and I didn't get cursed out. Well at least out loud, LOL.

2nd complaint--I already wrote about there not being a shortage of parking spots in that certain area. There are 2 nice size truckstops in close proximity to this rest area that I was making a potty stop at--4 miles west at the 126 and 13 miles east at ex. 143. Why at that time of night would you stop and sleep in a rest area with such limited parking? There's room for maybe 6-8 big trucks and there are almost always open spots at the 2 places I mentioned up to around 11 pm at night. Plus you're not right up against the freeway getting woke up by people catching the rumble strips on the shoulder. I think 1/2 the parking lot was still empty at the 126 when I went by. It would just be nice if everybody left the rest area spots open if at all possible for those who are just needing to make a quick stop to use the facilities.

Yes, I do realize that not everybody knows that particular stretch of highway as well as I do. You'll also notice that I only mentioned 2 of the larger places but there are several others. I'm just not going to give away my secret parking areas. The major spots though are easy to look up in the truck stop guide books that are available and are usually for sale right beside the atlases. I also know that in certain areas the rest stops have the only available parking spots. It just isn't the case in this area early in the evening.

Ok probably going to get hate comments with this post.......