I went down to walk along the river yesterday fully prepared to run the gauntlet of post apocalyptic tent tribes only to find them all wiped out. I had heard during the week that the camps had moved but I really didn’t believe it until I noticed nothing but snow fence where occupied territories once stood. This happened in under a week and I’m a little pissed at myself for not witnessing the exodus.
The “bike fixing” camp alone would have taken the campers themselves a month to disassemble and relocate so this city must have helped. I know things like this are years in the planning but a part of me thinks that the fire department action a month or so ago might have sped up the timetable just a bit. But how did they get this done? Someone leak the fact that a raid was eminent and they themselves relocated. Or, did a host of police cars followed by an equal number of trash trucks roll up like a war time armored division and make quick work of the whole mess?
Remember, that is just half of the Rollin Cyclez Bike Campus depicted above and I think their bold name might have had a lot to do with the recent troubles. Grouping multiple camps and declaring yourselves a campus is aggressive and a clear colonization signal. The fire I was talking about was started by a smaller tribe (technically one sleepy crack zombie) probably as a warning that they would not be brought into the bike theft ring without a fight.
I enjoyed my stress free walk but couldn’t help wonder where everyone had gone. I have a friend who runs (not controls it, but physically runs like someone is chasing her) the same area and she covers a lot more ground than I so she is already on the lookout. I have more questions than answers but the dog park looks awesome…