…. Of course hanging out at Starbucks ...

Small COVID Recovery, … And We Are Crashing Again !! No Bueno !!

Can't remember when that I have been staying put this long, if ever since retiring.

You all know that I have been “Urban Living”. That means living in my motorhome full time on the city streets. In particular here, the city of Mountain View, CA ( Mostly at this Location ).  This is home for me since retiring in 2007. Has not been a problem for me since I spent lots of time on the road living the RV life.

However, for a few years now, more and more people in this city, and throughout the Bay Area, actually all the big cities in Calif, and perhaps the country, people are engaging in Urban Living; using cars, vans, and motorhomes on the streets to live. And my home city has engaged in a war to outlaw all motorhome from parking on city streets. This city has about 800 people living in motorhomes, vans, and cars on the streets, and they want them gone, out of this city. And they put a prop. in the ballot for the city citizens to vote into city law, to ban the motorhomes from parking on the city streets. Will know next Tues, vote day what will happen.

Why Urban Living ?  … people are being priced out of renting in our cities. If you cannot buy a house, or pay high housing rents to developers / corporations, then you shall be homeless. With current economic conditions, these trends cannot be reversed, as such more and more people will be priced out of purchasing and renting, and they have to do something. Currently that seems to be, use cars, vans, and old motorhome and go to the streets for ‘Urban Living’. People are doing it because they have no choice. I do it by choice, since am RV’ing a lot of the time thru the year. However, am slowing down as I advance in age.

To keep this story short, the city has started a temporary Safe Parking Program for Homeless people. Yep, that means me, Living in Motorhomes on city streets are callled homeless people. Anyways, the temporary Safe Parking Lots are designated areas in city or county property for people living in vehicles to park. After almost a year after the program started, I was the first Motorhome to go into one of the Safe Parking Lots. There are lots and lots of rules. More on this, Maybe Later.

The Temporary Safe Parking Lot from the hill, about 30 sites.

Since we dont have shore hookups, that is water, electricity and sewer, I have added more solar panels to Bigfoot (my Motorhome). Currently, in the summer I get around 500 Watts max of power. Therefore, am able to switch the refrigerator from propane to 110V AC power for about 8 hrs a day during the summer. And about 6 hrs day in early winter. I use to have 4 house batteries but they got weak after about 2.5 years. So now I have the newer, 1 Lithium Iron Phosphate battery, but it costs  ~ $950 ea, ouch, ouch. Is OK, it suppose to last around 10 years, so is cheaper in the long run.

In Next Blog My First Trip Since COVID