A Wal-Mart Holiday Travelers Meditation

It is about 50 degrees here in Shallotte, NC - expected to get near 70 today and I like it!
We left Annapolis on Thursday night at just about 9 PM. This may sound like a crazy time to start driving to some folks, but our intention was to avoid the DC and Richmond, VA regular traffic in the morning on Friday. Thinking ahead, as we so often do, we also thought that traffic might be even heavier based on the fact that Christmas is on next Tuesday and people may be taking the whole weekend off prior to it and may have even been thinking of heading out on Friday to beat the weekend traffic.
Well, there you have it. The entire thought process on why to leave on Thursday night.

It worked out just fine. We drove until 2:30 AM, early Friday morning and made it all the way to Rocky Mount, NC. This was about 3+ hours from my parent’s house in Shallotte. This would be an easy ride for us in the morning to reach their house, where we will dock and spend Christmas and a few days beyond. Jasper had already fallen asleep on his bed (the fold out couch) along with Megan at some point earlier during the drive. Megan awoke around 12:30-1 AM and came to sit up front with me as I drove. Although she was asleep again within 15 minutes and it was nice to have her as visual company. We were excitedly heading towards our first time ever stay in a new camping site.

We found our (first ever) high class 24 Wal-Mart parking lot for our place of rest for this day. I went in and asked the Customer Service Manager for her permission to park there over night. With that handled, we sequestered a corner of the lot that was the darkest, got ourselves ready and went peacefully to sleep, our so we thought, for the remainder of the night.
As you might imagine, there are a few things that are different sleeping in a parking lot than sleeping in your bedroom in your home. Not immensely different but different all the same. To start with, we were the only ones there with an RV. This makes us stand out just a bit and makes people stare and I assume, wonder where we are from and where we are going and why in the world we would be sleeping in the Wal-Mart parking lot. On this particular night’s stay, just four days before Christmas in NC, at a 24 hour Wal-Mart, people were still shopping at 2:30 AM when we pulled in and by 6 AM when I awoke, abruptly and gazed outside in squinting eyed wonder, the parking lot was beginning to fill up.
Now, as I was saying, abruptly I was awoken, due to the diligent efforts of the landscaping and parking lot crew attending to keeping the lot area clean and ready for all of those cars and associated people that would soon arrive in hoards to continue with the most joyous activity of the season. I am not sure why the lot was so dirty and cluttered under and around our RV but, that must have been the case cause’ the guy with the gas powered back pack, aaaaahhhhhaaaaannnn, aaaaahhhhhaaaaannnn, aaaaahhhhhaaaaannnn, leaf blower spent so much additional time around us that Megan and I both sat up in a bolt, wondering if we were being invaded by a gang of industrious dirt bikers or if a small Robinson helicopter had mistaken the top of our unit for a landing pad. Perhaps he was just as curious as everyone else, wondering what the hell we were doing there and determined that he had a sort of legal reason or employer based charge that allowed him, in his mind, to get as close as he wanted to the RV. Or maybe he had been employer directed to spend some additional time there to hopefully wake us so that we would leave the lot and clear the 7 spaces we had occupied as I pulled in perpendicular to the painted lines. Or maybe he was just a simple, single minded person with no F’in respect for the weary traveling Wal-Mart Camper.
Ultimately, it made no difference to me. He soon left and I was again, fast asleep. Horridly dreaming that our car had been stolen from the back of our RV, as we slept. I will tell you that not too many times before this night have I had that dream, as I lay sleeping in my comfy, warm bed in my home without wheels. But, I must sadly admit, not even that dream was powerful enough to have me rise again as I slept alongside my affable traveling partner until 9 AM. When, I was however, awoken again by the sound of very real car doors shutting, very close to our sleeping, traveling, eating, house pod. Checking quickly through the previous files of my nights scattered dreams and random thoughts, I wonder for a moment, before sitting up, if someone was in fact in our car. I decided to get up and look.
What I saw when I looked out was very surprising to me in two ways. We keep forgetting that it is the Christmas shopping season. As we make our Merry way down the highways of this great country, Christmas shopping has been the furthest thing from our lives and minds. So it has taken us by surprise, several times, as we went into the stores for provisions, that there were so many people shopping. Then in a short bit, we remember what is going on (who’s simple and single minded now). Having made this realization several times now, DUH, the very, very full parking lot this Friday morning was only the small shock. The larger one emanated from the sound of the vehicle doors I heard shutting while I was in the final moments of my rest.
(When I chose our parking location for the night, I had intentionally left two spaces between me and the curb at the end of this row. This was so I would later be able to easily maneuver out of the space into a parking lot travel lane and exit the place with ease.)
By the time I looked out, someone had already taken the one space, furthest from the front of the unit, along side the curb, respectfully leaving the one immediately in front of us open. Now I watched, in amazement and some rising spark of disbelief, the final exiting of a family from Dads White Chevy Extended Cab Pickup Truck. (and I swear that they had smug looks on their faces for having found their own special parking spot on the lot) They or he had decided that parking their vehicle in the spot directly in front of the RV (within a foot of the front) was a real good idea and possibly even thought that the remaining open space must be a special gift from the Yuletide Parking Goddess. In fact it probably seemed like quite a find as no one else had taken it yet. And look, they may have said, no big issue, someone has already parked in the spot directly behind them, too. I know now I should have gotten a picture of this but it just didn’t occur to me in the moment. I hate when I get distracted like that and miss capturing that special moment in digital image.
So I went back in to the unit after surveying the predicament we were in. I pondered the options and possible solutions. We were certainly not in a hurry. We have no schedule to keep. No one even knows where in the hell we are in the world. And, I hadn’t even made my first Café Latte yet. Besides of the two groups that parked close enough on either end of us to sandwich us in, one of them would come out soon.
They wouldn’t be in there all day. Right!

Breathe In, Breathe Out!