Strange rest area experience...
 

I just completed another cross-country drive, sleeping in rest areas on the way across. It's way more efficient than sleeping in hotels, and just oodles cheaper, if less comfortable. I found out Friday night in a rest area outside an unnamed metropolis exactly how uncomfortable in can be.

So I pull in, and the rest area seems unusually busy for 1am on a Saturday morning. I ignored the crowds, a particular specialty for me, and I started going through my evening routine -- dig out my toothbrush, lay out my sleeping bag across the front seat, the whole works. After just a moment, though, I realize kind of a strange thing. The guy in the car next to me has pulled up, and he's alone in his car, and it's still running. He's just sitting there in his running car. I don't think twice about it as I go in to brush my teeth. I come back out and he's still there, though, and there's another one next to him -- same deal -- driver is alone, car is running.

That kind of makes me uncomfortable, for reasons that I couldn't put my finger on, so I got in my car and moved to another spot. ... They both followed me.

I pretended to ignore them for a moment longer, then the guy in the closer car blatantly adjusted his rearview mirror to watch me without looking directly at me. That threw me over the edge.

I got out of my car and walked around to his car. He rolled down his window. "Is there something I can help you with?" I asked.

"Uh, no, I guess not," he muttered, sounding somewhat sheepish. He was mid-50's, maybe, with crinkly skin, a scraggly beard, and one ear-ring.

"What's that?" I asked -- I wasn't sure I had heard him.

"I, uh, thought you might be, uh, interested in something," he replied.

Then, all of a sudden, I _got_ it. Walking back around to the driver's side of my car, I made the mistake of looking into the car parked on my left side. Some guy was apparently getting "warmed up" for an encounter. Or maybe "cooling down" after an encounter. Or something. Ew, right there in public! ... What an evening. I ended up sleeping there anyway, with my doors locked, trying to ignore the people who pulled alongside, left their engines running, and just looked at me through my windows.

Anybody else have one of these? Know any more details? What kind of signal do you have to give to say "I'm not interested in anything?"

aaaahhhhhh!!! run away!

http://www.bustedtees.com/shirts/rainbowsaregay
http://www.bustedtees.com/images/rai...t_featured.jpg

They are homosexual prowlers, found frequently at parks and rest-stops.

Re: Strange rest area experience...
 

The right turn signal as you pull into a motel parking lot.

:D

Wait! I think that's backwards.

Isn't it, "Left is right, and right is wrong?" ;)

Ooops...

In our generation yes. These days, all bets are off.

That sounded bad.

Not that theres anything wrong with that.

Ahem.

and you would know this exactly how, with emphasis on "frequently"?

Dan, glad you made it safely! Fortuantely, I did not encounter anything of this sort in my trek.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/116053-54-hours-69-e.html

Kinda like the scene in "Something about Mary"

Well, a few years back, coming home from a Porsche Club Race in a caravan, one of the guys had a flat on his trailer, since I was just ahead, I pulled into the next rest stop. While waiting for them to get the tire changed a mile down the road, I was watching what was going on around me (this was GA and I had a Porsche race car on the trailer) a ugly chick walks up and knocks on the window of my SUV (yes, those of us who do track events drive big trucks & SUVs as track support vehicles) and ask if I need a date :eek: I tell her my friends are only a few minutes back and I'm heading out as soon as they call, so No thank you . I am now watching everything around me very closely, she goes truck to truck until I see here climb into an 18 wheeler. I tell my buddies that the really owe me for putting me through that when we stop for dinner:cool:

Dan, you had balls of kryptonite to get out of your car and walk up to the car. Yikes......

Was the guy backed in to his parking spot?

Balls of kryptonite? Do not confuse courage for idiocy in the face of sheer exhaustion, my dear friend. ;)

Racer -- not too long ago, I was scanning CB frequencies on a drive up I-95 through Georgia. At a truck stop up ahead there was some woman on the horn blabbing about how good she was, and how she'd make your five bucks worth your while. You want to know the sick part? People were actually answering! She sounded like she had to be at least 50, but maybe she was hot. Heck, who knows, maybe all these years I've been looking in the wrong places, and the hot chicks are waiting at truck stops advertising their services on the CB. Ew.

Shaun, glad to hear your drive went well. 54 hours is a lot better than I was liable to make in the Honda Civic, heavily loaded. lol. I could barely make 50 up the rolling midwestern hills, let alone 90!

Sounds like he wanted to back into Dan's. :eek:

Hopefully the subject of 'rims' didn't come up. -yy'Yikes


Glad ya made it to CT okay.

Is this a secret to you G9Shaun?

That is near Kingsland, a local joke going on for many years, I don't think that she really ever acted, but I never acted, so I can't be sure, I had a sales route and traveledthat roade twice a week and with races (with local Friends) so I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure that she is BS

Seriously. Dan, I can't believe you didn't even consider this!!! You need to catch up on your movie watching!!


Next time roll up in the Wal-Mart parking lot*. No bathroom to brush your teeth or pee, but no action like that!!


* Wal-Mart actually lets you sleep in their parking lots if you're an RVer. I guess they assume you'll buy some stuff inside. All their road atlases have the stores marked.

There was a rest stop on I-75 in SW FL where they actually closed it down because of the stuff going on. Florida rest areas now have signs that say "Secruity on Duty".

What a world we live in....

Dan,
You made it to CT? Where did you land?

Probably why Democrats and union thugs hate Wal-Mart.







I couldn't resist

At truck stops they're called "lot lizards."

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1130124794.gif

Geeze thats risky behaviour just to save a few bucks. Get a room....they have nice safe beds and cable these days!

Go rent "There's Something About Mary"...if you need more motivation to change your ways . ;)

helps if you don't wear your "Wham" t-shirt...

this experience alone would wake me up enough to make it to the next rest stop.... though there's no guarantee that the next one isn't that *popular* either

Frankie Say Relax........

same on Long Island.

I realized that I had a cousin (Twice removed? He's my dad's brother's son's wife's brother...) in the area that I hadn't talked to in a few years, so I gave him a call. Turns out that he's renting a place over a bike shop in Niantic for about 2/3 of my housing allowance. It isn't nice, but it's cheap lodging for 6 months. He also, coincidentally, owns a mechanic shop next door to the bike shop, so I'll probably get after-hours access. It could be worse.

That stuff goes on big time in NJ rest area's. One time I was driving through Michigan, I stopped to take a leak at a rest stop at night. when i got out of my car , a guy got out a few spots away. No big deal. As I was taking a leak he goes to the urinal next to mine, which bugged me because there was about 15 of them empty. He looks over at me looks at my fire dept jacket, says" youre a fireman thats cool" I said yeah thanks. Then hes looks over and says, "hey would you want a BJ?"
I dont even think i finished peeing , I zipped it right up, shoved the guy, said get the f@#k away from me. and ran the hell out of there. Hes walkin behind me saying "sorry bud i was just asking".
When i got back in my car, I called my wife to tell her what happened. Which I'm sorry i did, because she was so upset about it she almost peed herself from laughing so hard.:mad:

Same in SC. The "no-facilities" parking areas have been closed down, and a few years ago they remodelled all the full-service rest areas to include security personnel and parking lot cameras.

LeeH is correct: When I used to drive trucks (10yrs ago), the parkinglot prostitutes were referred to as "Lot Lizards". And the rest areas were referred to as "Pickle Parks" - for obvious reasons.

You should have pee'd on the dude and make him pay you $20 for it :)

A major rest stop with a weigh station just south of Everett on I-5 got shut down years ago because of this. There is a State Patrol branch headquarters there now that it has re-opened.

Funny society's reaction to this. We have had acceptance of the gay lifestyle crammed down our throats and up our... ahem, you get the idea... for years. When faced with a too-public display of this behavior everyone I know reacts with revulsion, no matter how "liberal" they profess to be. Funny how that works.

You know, it's kind of funny like that, Jeff. I felt ashamed of myself afterwards for not being more kind to the guy. I mean, he has every right to be hunting for prey at a rest area, right? I mean, how could he know that I was an innocent traveler, with no intent to commit sexual acts that evening? Who am I to judge? (sigh) I'm kind of surprised that this thread has made it to page 2 without a single "Dan is evil for not responding with kindness" comment.

Dan you are an unkind beast with evil anti-homophobic intent.
You should have a least offered a little bit....

Howzzat?

Yeah, you could've at least given him a tug.

just a gay dude looking for love without commitment. no harm, no foul. well, maybe he made a few assumptions.

Hmm... could it be that deep down inside (not even that deep for some of us) we find the whole idea pretty damn disgusting? Imagine that. Maybe they still belong in the closet. It seems a lot of folks "tolerate" them in a detached kind of hypothetical way. Things can get way to real when one propositions you, though. Or hangs out near where your kids play, or any number of more personal encounters with one.

sorry jeff. dont feel that way. i dont have a stamp on my head saying "i love women!". i work out at a gym that is 80% gay. i dont know if i am open minded, or i am just plain used to it. but i have been asked out, and i just give them a friendly "no thank you". it doesnt bother me a bit. i have never caught a man secretly spanking it to me, that may be another issue entirely, but i know it wont make me gay like some transmitable disease or anything. but on the other hand, i have never seen a woman secretly fingering herself to me either. either way, no harm no foul.

or as they say in thailand, "same, same, but different" just this weekend, i went to a friend's birthday party. his "partner" threw a suprise at a local bar. i swear, in that room, there were all sorts of hot women there. this one girl, annie, a cute professional organizer, told me, "tonight i am gonna have to hook up with a guy, been too long" i looked at her, and she asked, "is that your girlfriend?" i stammered out a stupid meek "yes", and my girl looked at me and said, "you wish!" she found another straight guy and was off to the races. not 10 minutes later, an asian woman comes up to me, grabs my arm and ask, "are you scott?". NO!

i wish i was scott. seriously, whatever people do that doesnt affect me, is just that, whatever. put a positive spin on it. gay guys improve the straight men, to straight women ratio!

I'm with Vash on this one...

I used to do a lot of hitchhiking and was propositioned more than once. A simple "No thanks" was all it took... no need to take offense.

I always figured it was no different than when I hit on girls... I knew I wouldn't always be succesful but persistance would help ya get lucky now and then.

It'd definately be different if he was forceful or aggressive... I have no tolerance for that, but that's true of guys hitting on girls too.

I wouldn't worry about my kids being around gay men. I'd worry about them being around pedophiles.

Like Catholic Priests?

I've got a really creepy rest-area story from my childhood, yep, happened in CT as well. This was probably 1982-83, but I can't see it getting much better.

I lived on the other side of a rest area, you could ride your bike for 10 mins and get through to a I91 rest area. A buddy and I (we were 12 or so) would frequently ride there to get a soda or collect cans for returns (I know I know, dumb move of course)

One day, we were walking through, and a van pulled up fast and a guy said "are you guys s***ing d**k today?"

We backed away a little, then the sliding door opened, and like three middle aged guys came flying out. We ran our a**es off, even ran through a swamp. The guys followed us into the swamp too. We were able to get away, they were calling after us to come back. I didn't realize until 3-4 years later how close I came to being a statistic, as there were several abductions from this same rest area.

Moral of the story, unless you're really, REALLY tired, skip the rest area and go to an "easy on-easy off" populated area. Also, if you live close, don't ever let your kids go anywhere near one!