I LOVE our new home! I LOVE sweeping the sand out of our little beach home. I LOVE that we can have a beach home anytime we want. I also LOVE watching the sun set into the ocean from our dining room table. I LOVE curling up like a kitten and taking a nap in the sunlight up in the Presidential Suite (the bed above the cab). I LOVE my herb garden with all the baby herbs (that I forgot to label, so now have no idea what is growing where). I LOVE our “Just Married” sign in the back window (which I decided is acceptable to use for up to one year) that showers us with “Congratulations!” or honks with a thumbs up from perfect stranger. I LOVE sitting sideways on our bed with the big window open and screen pulled back, so our feet or arms can slip outside, and taking in the views: water, trees, people, rocks, birds. I even watched a dolphin swimming in the bay!
What I did NOT LOVE, and found annoying, was our first visit by the police. We were parked on the street in Liberty Station and had been there for about an hour when “the man” knocked loudly on our door Monday night at around 8:00. Matt answered the door and they told us to restrain our dogs. (Later I thought that we should have said NO! our dogs were in our house they do not need to be restrained!) The police asked Matt to step outside and once he was out there they informed him that they had received a “complaint from the guard” that we had slept there over night. “Let me stop you right there” Matt interrupted. He went on to explain that we had been parked in one of the parking lots at Liberty Station since that morning. We had eaten at Five Guys (yummy!), Panera, and Sammy’s, we had walked our dogs in the park, and we had done our grocery shopping in that center. But we had only been parked on that road for about an hour.
The officer (noting our South Dakota plates) explained that the road we were on was not public??? Matt balked (respectfully of course) because of course the roads are public. Furthermore, there is a parking lot right beside the road that allows parking all hours except 2-4am. Matt inquired if the same was not true of the streets? The officer spouted again about not being allowed to sleep on the streets. WE KNOW!! We have read the laws. After they left we finished visiting with Greg, our house guest for the day, then we drove off to find another place to sleep. We were annoyed that the police bothered us when we were doing nothing. We were annoyed that he made up lies about someone complaining that we had been sleeping there at night. We were annoyed that he treated us like tourists that came to crap on San Diego with our big RV. But even though we were annoyed I was so glad that he decided to come at 8pm rather than at 3am.
My brother Derrick had a shirt that said “Legalize Juggling” since, as a street performer, he was constantly being bugged by the police. It seems that whenever a person tries to step out of the “norm” the police are there to harass them.
I am certain that will not be the last time we are spoken to by Johnny Law. But it is a small price to pay for living the life that I LOVE!
xoxo
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!
Briana Nicole Schultz.
As long as you’ve got the RV you should keep the “Just Married” sign in the windowed. It might be of help when the police come calling next time.
We haven’t had any encounters with the police, with the exception of one police officer who arranged parking for us at a small-town fire station.
I hadn’t heard about a San Diego law restricting RVs through a ‘no sleeping in your vehicle’ rule. More info please. (Burbank is working out well for us, but we’re not on the beach!)
Wow, that’s so cool! I wish our Police encounter had gone the same way. He didn’t really seem too interested in helping us out, just more like getting us out. Here’s the actual San Diego Municipal Code:
§86.23 Use Of Streets For Storage, Service or Sale Of Vehicles or For Habitation Prohibited
(f) It is unlawful for any person to use a vehicle while it is parked or standing on any street as either temporary or permanent living quarters, abode, or place of habitation either overnight or day by day.
So yes, technically you can never “live” – including sleeping – in your vehicle on a public street in the city of San Diego. That being said, there are plenty of places where the enforcement of that is obviously minimal to nonexistent.
Yes, we’ve definitely had the 3am knock and that one is a very confusing and startling matter! You wake up thinking “The jig is up!!” And really… you do need to restrain those dogs, they are vicious… ;P
Let us know if they have “couples” jail cells around the country!
:-)
what matters is being happy.
Wow. I grew up in NYC, but having recently experienced small / smaller cities it sometimes feels like small-town and big-town America are two different countries. In case it’s not obvious, small-town America is much more RV friendly. That said, we’ve only had good experiences parking in cities. (We’re in Santa Clarita now, and have been parking in a sweet spot in Burbank for the past five nights.)
I LOVE the picture of the RV aka beach house and my sister would be so jealous of the dolphin picture. Come to find out from experience, they can be a bit hard to capture.