Time Zone: Central
Today's Weather: 66ºF, sunny
Length of Tour Stop: 7 days/6 nights
Next move: tonight at 10:30pm
This is one of the joys of being independent from the company: we can move any way we'd like. And since we're gonna be up no matter what, why not skip the grumbling and just get on the road Sunday night? Then we can sleep our normal amount on Monday and still get to the new destination the day before sound check, rather than the day of. This, we feel, is an infinitely more civilized way to proceed.
The only thing this requires is that we find a safe place to park and sleep in the RV. A month ago, back when we were young and green in the ways of RVing, we opted to pay $25 for one night of a full hookup site at an interstate-side camp in Athens, AL (on our way from Houston to Nashville). But now we are older, wiser, and more adventurous, and so we are going to try something about which we've only read: the Walmart Slumber Party!
This is a service honored by most Walmarts wherein RVs and trucks are welcome to park in the vastly empty Walmart parking lots overnight, free of charge. They claim to provide security, and of course there's a Walmart right there where they'd be more than happy to sell you anything else you might need. Free camping!
We're a little nervous.
We called ahead, the manager said just look for all the other trucks and park near them. We'll probably get in around 2am. But the Walmart is open 24 hours.
Walmart will be our one-night home.
I'm curious what it will feel like to sleep in a Walmart parking lot. There is a pronounced locational dissonance to RVing; it's the same living apartment no matter where you're parked, and yet how that apartment feels does change, and sometimes vastly, depending on your location. The experience of a space is not merely what that space is made of and what it has inside of it. How the light comes in, what outside noises you hear, and myriad other tiny changes in the atmosphere seem to reshape the tangible objects you thought you knew. In Alabama I felt as though our bed was poised on the edge of a cliff but in Indianapolis it felt hidden in the back of a cave. In Dallas our living room felt exposed whereas it was cozy in San Antonio and Houston. Here in St. Louis we've been parked next to a gorgeous tree with our own little lawn, southeasterly exposure for the kitchen houseplant and no immediate dangers in leash-length distance for the dogs. Even after only a week our living space becomes interwoven with its location. A new place to park makes your familiar bed not quite familiar.
What new sides of my private places will a Walmart parking lot show me? There are some questions you wonder how wise it is to ask . . .
Miles Driven with RV: 3287.5 miles
Days Lived in RV: 61 days
Camps Overnighted in RV: 9 RV parks
States Camped in RV: 6 (TX, AL, TN, IN, KY, IL)