I know this topic is played out, and the season is winding down, however a few casual observations.
Last season I did 99 days out of 180 in the dunes. No not in a row, but you get the picture.
This season I will hit close to 80 out of 180 days, God willing and if the kungflu vacs' dont take me out first.
Say what you want about "Tom" and his quest for a war on ghost camping and the 14 day rule, well except for the chosen few he allows to camp around him like he did when he was on Gecko, a.k.a. f-n HYPOCRITE!!! Yea, he has a few buddies that are way above the law and they camp indefinitely at the RRE nestled in his bosom.
All that aside, he single handedly conquered the entitled elitist's of the RRE that have ruled for almost two solid decades and cleared most of the pads and certainly Gecko road and campground. He isn't chasing people off on the 14th day either, he actually is fairly mellow on that and doesn't get in your business until close to the 3rd week or longer, for the most part anyways.
Do people still pull fast ones and ghost camp, YOU BET YOUR ASS THEY DO, but 99.99% of it now is the PPP money pusher & trailer crowd. These folks know Tom and the BLM won't/can't tow a pusher/trailer that is being left to hold space. I'm sure Tom knows this and just goes for the low hanging fruit, i.e. trailers that ghost camp. Plus he does his drive byes hands out info brochures and knocks on the doors of the usual suspects to advise them it is time to move on, etc, etc. Although this group of pusher/box trailer folks typically do it leading up to a holiday weekend and are so painfully obviously doing it, they mostly do it on the pads, and have insurance, have money to pay a fine (not that they get ticketed) and could care less if they get red tagged, (have you seen what it costs for fuel? storage? not that they can't afford those costs but they are entitled and don't think they should, so they don't) They the pusher/box trailer kidds just aren't doing it to much at RRE, for now anyways. The second Tom leaves his post as camp host the RRE will be back, that you can take to the bank.
It is eerily weird driving through RR and not see the same moho's parked for 6 straight months with nobody in them. Must have been nice for some people to actually camp there this season for the first time in decades.
The point of this post is to merely give you a birds eye view of what took place when one individual attempted to help the BLM with a few rules. A few rigs get towed, social media and the karens go nutts, and BAM there was way more parking. Seriously more.
Now all you washers don't get to excited, just keep your dirty collective asses over on that side please. I stated more parking, mostly on Sun-Wed, not enough for you kids to displace. And if any of you think you can pull up Friday night on a holiday and park your 5 or more rigs, well Biden has some free crack pipes for ya.
Disclaimer: yes I had to move several times all season, and yes I never park in the same spot for more than 14 days without moving any appreciable amount of space, and yes I'm always with my rig. No, I don't miss the lazy do nothing camp hosts of yesteryear. Do I like Tom, not so much, the ratt bastard always bets me to the leftover wood!
Enjoy.
