Double Parking?

One of the things that I would like to do more of is actually experience more of the airport environment than just the runway and taxiway. In a recent flight to Ukiah the plan was to land and than walk to town to go visit the “Coffee Critic”. A friend of mine is really into coffee and this is supposed to be one of the places that have been doing specialty coffee for a long time. The challenge this time was that all the transient parking spots were full. At UKI the tie downs are just in front of the terminal building and every one of them had a plane in them. So I trolled the ramp looking for alternative spots with no luck. Not knowing what to do I decided I’ll just park on the end of the row of the planes in transient parking. This to me felt a little like double parking. As I got out and was pushing back I noticed an airport vehicle driving toward me. My first thought was here comes the enforcement patrol that is going to tell me that I can’t park there. The truck pulled up, slowed down and the driver rolled down the window. I was bracing myself for what I thought would be a lecture about following airport rules and just what was I doing…. However, the driver politely asked if I needed fuel and said that go ahead and park on the end because the transient spots were full. I thanked him and said that I was good on fuel…. I had left San Carlos with full fuel so I really didn’t need fuel. I think next time I’ll want to support the local airports and make a point of stopping for fuel. It is refreshing to see people at the airport looking out for pilots that are new to the airport. Can you imagine what would have happened if this was a car trying to park in an unmarked spot? I can only imagine instead of getting a friendly and helping hand the car would have probably been ticketed and be towed.