Boondocking in a national park lodge parking lot?
Any rules against overnighting in the parking lot of Old Faithful Lodge, or some other busy place? What if you have a room, and some of the family were to sleep out in a camper?
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then to follow the rules where? I don't understand what you mean.
Edit:
Oh I think you mean THAN, not then. Ironic that you can't follow spelling and grammar rules and yet you are a stickler for rules. ;)
Anyway, let me give you an example of what I mean.
We parked in the rear parking lot of a convenience store during an ice storm in Missouri once. We've done this before and just walked into the store, bought a small item and let the clerk know we were going to be parked for a few hours, sleeping. We didn't ask if we could park, we asked if anyone is going to hassle us while we try to get some sleep.
Sometimes if you ask "Can I park?" people feel obliged to answer that question truthfully and tell you "no" even if they'd rather look the other way. If you tell them what you are going to do and ask them if you'll be bothered, well that's a different question isn't it? That relieves them of the burden of telling you no, which they may not want to do.
Of course, rules exist for a reason but sometimes the right thing(or benign thing) to do is to violate the rule.
Here's another similar situation. In Texas we went to a park along the border(or was it New Mexico?). Anyway we were looking for a place to camp up on this hill, a road was washed out and there were park rangers around. We went to ask a ranger where to park and while we were talking to him we asked where would be a good place for us to camp for the night. He said he knew of some places that were pretty far from the park. Then we asked when the park closes and if there was a gate that closed on us. He got the hint and said, "We close at dusk, no one comes up here to patrol after that."
Clearly he couldn't authorize us to camp there. But he didn't care if we parked in the lot overnight.
We gave him the opportunity to make a judgement call without officially making the call, thus giving him plausible deniability in the off chance that something went wrong. Knowing how to ask the right questions and how to chat up a ranger helps a lot.
But by all means, I encourage everyone else to ask directly if you can camp and be told no. We will continue to communicate our intentions without actually asking permission.
Edit:
Oh I think you mean THAN, not then. Ironic that you can't follow spelling and grammar rules and yet you are a stickler for rules. ;)
Anyway, let me give you an example of what I mean.
We parked in the rear parking lot of a convenience store during an ice storm in Missouri once. We've done this before and just walked into the store, bought a small item and let the clerk know we were going to be parked for a few hours, sleeping. We didn't ask if we could park, we asked if anyone is going to hassle us while we try to get some sleep.
Sometimes if you ask "Can I park?" people feel obliged to answer that question truthfully and tell you "no" even if they'd rather look the other way. If you tell them what you are going to do and ask them if you'll be bothered, well that's a different question isn't it? That relieves them of the burden of telling you no, which they may not want to do.
Of course, rules exist for a reason but sometimes the right thing(or benign thing) to do is to violate the rule.
Here's another similar situation. In Texas we went to a park along the border(or was it New Mexico?). Anyway we were looking for a place to camp up on this hill, a road was washed out and there were park rangers around. We went to ask a ranger where to park and while we were talking to him we asked where would be a good place for us to camp for the night. He said he knew of some places that were pretty far from the park. Then we asked when the park closes and if there was a gate that closed on us. He got the hint and said, "We close at dusk, no one comes up here to patrol after that."
Clearly he couldn't authorize us to camp there. But he didn't care if we parked in the lot overnight.
We gave him the opportunity to make a judgement call without officially making the call, thus giving him plausible deniability in the off chance that something went wrong. Knowing how to ask the right questions and how to chat up a ranger helps a lot.
But by all means, I encourage everyone else to ask directly if you can camp and be told no. We will continue to communicate our intentions without actually asking permission.
