Yesterday we went to a small local ski area; it opens at 11:00 and we got there at about 11:15. There were no other cars in the middle section of the parking lot, only a couple on each side (literally, 2 on each side) parked perpendicular to the way that you’d pull into the lot, nosed up to the snow banks. I parked parallel to these cars, but made myself a new row in the lot, at about what I thought was the right distance from the row bound by a snowbank, and also based on tracks I could see on the dirt/snow/ice lot from the day before.
A few hours later, it wasn’t exactly busy but there might have been 20 cars in the lot. My wife says, “have you looked at the parking lot lately?” “No, why?”
(We are the Volvo)
Oh dear.
Oh, dear. It seems that no one followed my lead and everyone parked straight in as they drove into the lot. But only in the middle area... WTF?
The Chevy in the foreground and the jeep to the left were NOT there when I pulled in. Only two cars on the far left where the Escalade is, and the right (above) where the Camry is.
Working with the information I had, I picked a direction and started a row. How would I have known that people usually park the other way, but only in the middle rows - not on the outside of the lot? I haven’t been to this ski area since last year, and anyway, it’s a giant empty dirt lot, what difference could it make? Maybe the rows create an awkward space if done the way I had started them? Maybe the next car that pulled in just wanted to be different, and it built from there with everyone else following the second car and not me?
Either way, I looked like a jackass parked 90 degrees to the other cars in my row. But I wasn’t about to give in and go move the car. The guy who pulled in directly adjacent to our car was in a long-bed quad-cab diesel truck and of course, pulled in so his front fender prevented me from opening my rear hatch. Why? Was he trying to make a point? You can see, it wasn’t that busy anyway, and I have a thing against driving in ski boots. So I left it. And you know what? By the time we left, there were hardly any other cars around anyway. The Tough Guy in the Big Truck had left, and we had plenty of room to load the car.
Still, next time, I’ll park the other way.
Was I wrong, dude?