Originally Posted by
spinnaker
Don't kid yourself. Rural America is loaded with drugs. A rural police officer has one of the most dangerous jobs in law enforcement because they tend to work alone in remote areas.
That said, I would not worry about it. Use your radar as others have mentioned. If you are going to stealth camp then be sure to look around. Make sure you are really in a stealth site and not nearby to some oxy user's party zone.
Hence one of the reason I like to hit camp late. If the druggies aren't there already then I pretty much don't have too much to worry about anyone showing up after 11:30PM when I show up to camp. At the same time when I show up to camp most people are already in bed so I don't have to worry about anyone calling the cops on me or anyone seeing me go to the campsite and deciding to come out and check on what I'm doing themselves. I may not get as much sleep as you get but I have less to deal with than you do.
I will fess I did run into a rather strange and unusual situation toward the end of the recent trip. I camped out behind a vacant store. It was in a strip mall and the other end of the mall had a grocery store in it. The end I was behind was being renovated...asbestos being removed according to what I saw on the signs when I checked out the area when I first got into town. The side door to the building was wide open...Sunday night. Out front you could hear the radio playing as someone forgot to shut it off. I set up camp around 11:30PM and headed off to sleep under clear skies and watching the meteors fly by overhead. I woke up 1-1.5 hours later and then I saw headlights coming from the far end of the building. I pretty much it had to the cops, but in this small town(Tupper Lake, NY)???? It didn't make any sense at all. The car kept coming and it had on the side spotlight as it went by me. It went right by me and didn't stop. It went around the corner of the building and shut off the spotlight as it went around the corner of the building. I was stumped. I was expecting to get busted and get thrown out. About 30-45 seconds later the car comes back and pulls up beside me...I didn't have the tent setup as there were no bugs or rain to worry about. The cop comes out of the car and asks me if I was okay and I said yeah I got into town late and saw the possible campsite and decided to use it. He got back in his vehicle and left. Nothing more said, didn't even check my ID. A couple of hours later he went by again and didn't stop that time. Definitely, in this day and age, the weirdest experience I've ever had. It's only the second time I've ever been paid a visit by the cops.