You Slept Where Last Night?

“You heard me right. We slept at Wal-Mart,” I answered. For non-Rving friends, staying at a Wal-Mart is unfathomable. For RVer’s, the welcome mat is rolled out.

The large and mostly flat Wal-Mart parking lots can be a place to park overnight. Of course, there’s no electrical or water hook-ups, but you do have a place to restock the pantry and buy stuff for the motorhome. For those occasions when a campground is not an option and Ed feels weary from the drive, boon docking at Wal-Mart is a friendly alternative and the stores are practically everywhere.

I like wheeling a shopping cart to the coach door and handing the groceries inside to Ed. We are fans of the pharmacy for our refills. And, the photo center makes it easy to make prints to send to family and friends. We never stay in a lot without spending money on merchandise or services. That may be why Wal-Mart’s corporate philosophy is RV friendly. They even sell a road atlas that contains a directory of all its stores. I highly recommend that you carry an updated version of this atlas in your motorhome. I also suggest that you be mindful of the “RVers’ Good Neighbor Policy on Overnight Parking Etiquette” which RV Clubs like FMCA and Escapees have adopted.

So, where are we sleeping tonight? It just might be a Wal-Mart.

(Note: One night we parked our coach in the lot of a home building supply retail chain. The lot was level and certainly large enough, but not conducive to a sound sleep. The high pitched safety beep of forklifts running in reverse manned by the night re-stocking crew and the amplified external manager’s public messaging system giving directives to the crew kept me awake until very late.)

Sweet dreams….