That's a Stupid Rule

Not long ago, a camper parked—and left— a van in the middle of the single-lane one-way drive that runs through the park. (Rule #2, No parking in the roadway, on the grass, on the concrete patio site, or in an adjacent site.) After getting no answer when I knocked on the camper door nearest to where the vehicle was, I headed out to the pier to see if the owner might be out there. Sure enough, she was sitting on a bench there, enjoying a beer and visiting with friends. I asked her to move her van, which by that time had blocked two large motor homes that were trying to get to their sites. She wasn’t happy with my request and replied,“Well, I have a load of I need to move into the camper. I can’t park in my site because our truck is there.” However, she did leave the pier and head for her vehicle, so I assumed (my mistake) that she was complying with my request. After I returned to my RV, I looked back to check that the van had been moved to the “extra vehicle” parking not far from her site. Well, she’d moved it all right, moved it onto the grass between the park drive and her site’s concrete patio area. I went back to the woman and asked her to please move the vehicle and reminded her that parking on the grass, like parking on the park drive, was not allowed. She said, “Where does it say that?” I pointed it out on the rule card, again, Rule #2. I also told her there was a sign posted in the grass, along the drive by her site, asking campers not to park on the grass. She said, “Where? I don’t see any sign around here.” I told her she didn’t see it because her van was now straddling that red and white No Parking on the Grass sign, which she’d knocked down and bent to the ground as she drove over it. The story should end with her apologizing and quickly moving her car, but no, that wasn’t the end of it. She walked off from me, opened the tailgate of the van, and started unloading things. Before she turned her back to walk away from me, she announced, “That’s a stupid rule and I have no intention of following it. I have things to unload and I’m not going to carry them from the parking area to my RV (a distance of about 30 steps).” Ahhhhh . . . the rewards of being a volunteer park host.