We have a Class C and do not pull a vehicle. ...hence we pull in and out during a stay at sites. For the first time in two years we had our chairs, table and firewood stolen. Would like input from others what they do in similar situations. Do you mark your site somehow that you are returning? Leaving the items up, to me, was enough that we are returning because who would leave them? Maybe we are to trusting.
The manager of the CG should have stepped in and tried to track down your items. As you said, leaving things like that should mark your spot but there are many that see things unattended and see them as fair game. I'm sorry your manager there didn't step up and do the right thing.
We rarely leave things out when we are gone from the site, even if we go in the car and the RV stays put. But when we do leave things out, we always chain them to something--the picnic table, a tree, the pedestal. Course you can't do that with wood, but most items can be chained down. We carry several cables and locks with us for this purpose. That said I'm sorry this happened to you. It's a shame that we have to go to all the trouble to protect our belongings.
I've seen people use orange plastic cones...not the huge ones they use on the highway, but the smaller ones used to mark sport fields. You can get them at sporting goods stores. Or maybe plastic "hazard-type" tape strung between a picnic table and a tree or a sign that says "this site is occupied".
We had something like this happen to us at a National Park when we used to have a Class C and also didn't have a toad. We simply stopped leaving anything at our site when we left for the day. It was a nuisance but was safer. At the park where we winter we occasionally pull the RV out for maintenance, etc. When we do we neatly stack all the chairs and other stuff and let the management know that we are away for a day or two. We've never had a problem with this and haven't found the need to chain things up.
QUOTE(dalsgal @ Sep 1 2014, 02:12 PM) [snapback]38084[/snapback] The manager of the CG should have stepped in and tried to track down your items. As you said, leaving things like that should mark your spot but there are many that see things unattended and see them as fair game. I'm sorry your manager there didn't step up and do the right thing. The park staff have been great. They checked with maintenance and called campers in our area to see if they saw anything. They also took a report.
I usually leave several items, so that's its fairly obvious that the site is in use and we didn't just forget something. Sorry about your loss. In almost 6 years of full-time camping I have never lost anything. I've left fishing poles, and other valuables outside without problem. I'm willing to assume the risk for not having to gather everything up every time I'm away from my site. Of course when camping away from civilization I padlock the generator to something so not too much of a temptation. About a year ago I mentioned to a passing Texas park ranger that I had something stolen for the first time, and thought that it was odd that someone would steal an ordinary $3 cement block from under my trailer and take nothing else. Later that day the ranger had located my cement block and returned it. It turns out another camper had a flat tire and her kid had borrowed it to elevate the jack higher.
