For the first part of my adventure, I went with something easy and booked myself a nice campsite at White Tank Mountain Regional Park. So how did I end up parked at a Walmart for the night?
Getting to Phoenix was not an issue. I cleared customs so fast I had a whole hour before boarding, lots of time to relax, or worry about what I might have forgotten depending on the moment. Flying was fine, other than I have to remember never to book the last seat on the right side of a CRJ900, no window there, so no pictures out of the plane! Getting to Cruise America to pick up my RV was not an issue either – freeways were flying. Getting the RV was fine too, all of this was about what I expected.
Getting across Phoenix, that is where the problems began. I had expected some delays by the time I left at 3pm, but it was a little more bogged down than I expected. Holiday rush perhaps? Driving on the freeway was easier than expected, other than the first few minutes of getting used to those crazy wide accessory mirrors – do not use them to judge if a vehicle is far away, they are little dots if they are back more than a few car lengths. After a couple of “wholy shit, he’s right beside me already” moments when trying to lane change, I managed to adjust my driving to not be an immediate side swiping menace on the Phoenix freeways. I found that crawling along I had plenty of time to get used to my vehicle size (it’s not that much bigger than a van), lots of time to check my mirrors and see that I was staying properly in my lane. But I did get across town a bit later than expected.
No big deal, I thought, still lots of time to shop and make it to the campground before they close the gates for the evening. I manage to park my RV without hitting anything, take a deep breath, and plunge into the epic shopping spree I needed to complete. I have mentioned in my previous post, I HATE SHOPPING. So, this was not a fun part of my vacation, this was a necessary evil in order to be able to enjoy my time in an RV. I had a huge list – I started with the strategy of trying to group stuff and hit those areas of the store. Pretty quickly I realized I know nothing about where stuff is, I tend to hit Walmart for specific things, so my knowledge of where to go was limited. Not to mention, I needed everything. So new plan: Go everywhere, down every aisle, check off stuff as I encounter it and put it in the cart. The only division I did was to not buy food, that would be
“round 2” of shopping.
This plan was working out, but I realized I was going pretty slow. Sometimes, I was trying to find the ONE item that wasn’t a pack of 2/4/8/huge. Other times, I was struggling with brands I wasn’t familiar with, or sizes I normally don’t buy as I only need to cover 6 weeks, not 6 months! Lastly, I was price shopping, usually for the cheapest thing, but sometimes I did look at a specific extra feature. Why I put down that can opener that also had a bottle opener to save two bucks I’ll attribute to shopping fatigue by the time I got three quarters of the way through the store.
By the time I get to the cashier, I see it’s dark outside. I have a nice chat with the lady ringing through my items, as it’s a ton of stuff we have plenty of time to talk about my trip while she rings things through. I comment on how long this took, and it’s only round one, round two is groceries. “Oh, that should be fast compared to all this” she stated emphatically. I was hoping that she was right, as I knew my time was getting tight. So back into the RV and unload, rather quickly without properly putting away stuff like I had hoped. I found under the table held lots of stuff, hopefully well enough to not come out driving.
Back into the fray I go, this time for food! More of the same, unfamiliar brands, large sizes I don’t want, where to find stuff. I somehow totally managed to miss the bacon, despite it took a whole wall area. Yeah, I was a little shopped out at this point. Back to the RV, throw bags in, check the time – 7:45pm. Holy crap! Grab my campground reservation out, check time gate closes – 8pm. Holy crap and a box of crackers!! I basically throw everything on the floor, just doing a quick purge of everything that would go in the fridge / freezer. Google directions to White Tank Campground. Google warns me that it may be closed by the time I get there. Thanks Google.
Drive. Drive in the dark, following instructions from Google maps, in a part of the world you’ve never been in before. Yeah, I was totally relying on the technology to get me there. Google said I would get there at 7:59pm. I should be good, right? Right??? I drive a bit fast, like as fast as a car would. I also brake and corner like a car would. This is not a good thing in an RV where you have just thrown stuff “where ever” and drive off. I can hear things moving about in the back, and suddenly something comes rolling to the front, coming to a sudden loud thudding stop by my passenger set. My bottle of “Kracken” rum has broken loose, rolling all the way down the RV and fortunately not smashing open hitting the front end. “Release the Kracken” I think to myself, what a monster of a day so far.
The googles did not fail me, but the park gate closing a minute, who knows could be 5 minutes early – did fail me! Now what??? Stealth camp? Hmmm, but in the dark I could end up in the middle of who knows what. Scratch that. Back to Walmart? They allow RVs to park overnight, and it’s only 10 minutes back to the Walmart I was just at.
While I am thinking my way through this, a car comes in the other direction, and opens the gate! Do I dare try driving through? I contemplate this for a moment, hand on the gear lever. No. Too risky, I have NO idea what is on the other side, not to mention, I wouldn’t know if I could get back through the gate should there be ANOTHER locked gate up the road.
So, back to Walmart! But there’s more to the story! I did my research and I know that if you want to over night in a Walmart, you need to ask the manager for permission. So, walk up to the greeter, who goes and finds a manager. “The manager says we don’t do that here.” My heart sinks. “But the Walmart at Grand and Bell does that” After a few minutes of back and forth between me, the greeter and the googles, we have a new destination booked in and off I go!
I have to say, the googles have been quite good getting me places here, better be good since this is the place where their self driving cars are being tested! After only one fuck up on my part, I arrive at Walmart #2. Go in. Ask for permission. “When you leaving tomorrow?” asks the manager. “Before 9am” I hedge, knowing he’s thinking about the lot starting to fill up with Christmas shoppers. Momentary pause by the manager. “Yeah, that should be OK”. Didn’t even want to know where or what I was driving; makes me wonder how much they cared at the end of the day.
I’m not cooking at this point, so off to the Walmart McD’s I go. THEN the alarm testing starts. I never knew an alarm system could have so many different sounds, all loud and annoying. Certainly added to the ambiance of eating two small cheeseburgers and a small fries. But, I make it back to the RV, with an hour to try and make some sense of the mess of stuff that has been thrown about by my racing to the park driving time. I sleep surprisingly well, considering that this particular Walmart likes paging people on the outside speaker system, 24 hours a day to match their 24 hours open.
Next morning, I awake somewhat chilly. My two blankets I bought just covered things well enough to fend off the chill, but I start up the furnace for a quick warm up, the batteries can handle that at least. My one goal is to make coffee, no McD’s this morning! What did I forget in the store to make coffee? Coffee, check. Manual coffee maker, check. Kettle, no – but I can make due boiling water in a pot. Go to start the stove. Hmmm, how do you get it to spark to light the propane? A few minutes later, I know there will be no coffee until I go back into the Walmart and get a lighter of some sort. Dammit, I now have to go in a Walmart without having had my coffee!
But it all worked out. Even my little time spend late the previous evening brought up a few new items (now have a kettle) and I found the other items I was missing so I’m all good now!
Off to White Tank Mountain!
