Van Life Is Not A Crime: Castle Rock State Park Police

Knock, knock knock. It's always when your tired and sleepy. The sound of the cops. I have been living in my van for 4 years now and with that comes some knocks from the cops. This happened very recently. It was me, my brother and our buddy Alex all hanging out in my brothers van. We were wanting to climb the following day and finishing up dinner and discussing plans when we heard the knocking. Then we noticed the bright lights shining in the cracks of the windows. We all looked at each other. Open the door I say.

So we opened the door. The state park rangers must have been knocking on the other side of the van. As we opened the door they walked around.

For some reason my brother had put on these red flashing lights inside his van so those were going off while we were exiting. They told us there was no camping on the State Park property. I asked about dispersed camping. We told them we would move and they were really cool. Turns out lots of people live in the Santa Cruz Mtns which makes it less friendly to van life.

Something funny though was when they were pointing their flashlights saying we like your van....and I was like. Yea you like that van life is not a crime sticker? Do you want a van life is not a crime sticker. Then I asked if I could snap a shot of their car behind our vans. They laughed and thought that was cool. I told them we would figure out where to go.

This is not the highlight of van life but it went alright. Here's the part that sucked....Figuring out what to do.

We figured we would try getting into a campground late and leaving early. This has worked before.

Well the campsites were all full since it was memorial day weekend. We didn't even realize all this at the time we made the plans. Turns out we found another road and a turnout to spend the rest of the night.

We woke up the next day and had made it through the night no tickets or anything. The state park parking lots were completely full so we found a spot to climb off the beaten path. Van Life is Not A Crime!

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