Parking can be fun

It's not always the places that threaten life and limb that leave you shaking. There's also the places where nobody's in danger, but there's lots of room for lawyers if you screw up. And plenty of time to see disaster looming.

Here, for instance.

In the middle of a small mountain town's business district, you make a 120-degree turn onto Main Street. Follow it as it winds out of town, past the hillside homes whose porches don't QUITE overhang the street. Make a hard right turn onto a side street that's about ten feet longer than your truck, and stop.

No, you're not done yet. See that street right there on your left?

Yes, the one the same width as your truck. With the crushed fencepost, and the hole where other trucks have broken through the asphalt.

No, that's not some small house's neglected driveway. That's a street. And you're going to turn left on it. With your left tandems dropping gently into that pothole and your trailer frame skimming the ruins of that chain-link fence, while your right front fender barely misses that old lady's picket fence in front of you.

You DID miss it, didn't you?

Good. Now inch your way forward another hundred feet, until you're past the building on your right. Ignore the twelve-year-olds racing past you on their little dirt bikes.

Behind you is the loading dock. It's angled in about thirty degrees, so although you're backing to your blind side, you can sort of see where you're going if you jigger your mirrors just right. And if you're careful, you won't flatten the fence in front of you and run over the dog as you straighten out. In which case you'll be safely parked, blocking only about 3\4 of the street. The locals will casually drive by on the shoulder, missing you by inches.

After getting here, backing in seemed easy. Enjoy the feeling.

You still have to get back out.

You can't turn around. So when the nice gentleman finishes unloading you you'll pull out, inch forward another hundred feet, and make another left turn that doesn't QUITE knock down the fence behind you or squash the car parked in front of you.

Then an s-turn only 3/4 as tight, and a left turn back onto Main (clearing the cars in the parking lot to your left by a good two feet), and you're home free.

(Except for the hairpin turn back onto the highway, of course. But after what you've just been through, that's nothing.)

The nice lady who gave directions didn't mention those details. Maybe she didn't want to scare me off...