I Can't Get No Sleep!

Since Adam has been doing such a grand job of describing in such witty detail our triumphs and hiccups thus far, I have taken a complete back seat from the blog and given myself the title of chief photographer and Facebook uploader... which I can just about manage!  Although my "back seat" assistance does also extend to the driving, much to Adam's annoyance!

However, recently there have been a few requests for a blog update from me so I thought it was about time I gave it a go, even though I have I have no idea how to upload it to the blog. Luckily it should be no problem for the resident web editor here :)

So, it's been nearly 14 weeks since I quit my job and left behind the normality of everyday life in the UK; my car, our house, our friends, family and colleagues and our lovely king sized bed in suburban MK!  Although, our replacement isn't so bad:

Of course we miss the important people in our lives and Adam misses reliable interweb connection (and of course bacon and brown sauce sarnies!).  Apart from that, the only time I miss home is when we unfortunately, on occasion, end up sleeping - or should I say parking - our new home, affectionately named Winnie, in the vicinity of often unexpected noise.

Walmart is a huge US-wide supermarket chain and has been undoubtedly our best ally when it comes to finding somewhere legal and free to park of a night and thankfully they are not hard to come by. Surprisingly (or perhaps not for such a domineering chain and parent company of ASDA) they have expanded across the all the states and into Canada and even as far North as Fairbank in Alaska.

We do often seek to stay at a Walmart especially when we are visiting major cities and towns, and we are exceedingly grateful for their hospitality.  If Walmart did not allow RV'ers, as we are referred to here, to stay overnight for free it would have been virtually impossible to see such vibrant and exciting major cities as Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle and Vancouver without much further expense. Some RV campsites in prime areas shamelessly charge incredible and unjustified sums of £30-£50 per night for just a parking space! WTF?”

In Chicago, Walmart let us down but we managed to camp in some kind of truck marshalling area (where all the huge trucks park and unload in preparation for big events in the city).  This photo from the Willis Tower makes for a pretty good game of "Where's Winnie":

In the USA and Canada there are thousands and thousands of acres of National Forests, which hold vast and beautiful treasured landscapes. They also often offer free "boondocking" opportunities if you are brave and adventurous (or insane!) enough to try and seek them out.  Free dispersed campsites are often at the end of narrow, steep, winding, unpaved potholed remote roads.  Sounds idyllic huh?  Until you try and navigate a "winnie" which is essentially a super wide and tall 6 ton house under low hanging trees, along bone shaking gravel slopes often with no turnaround points for miles, with stone chips flying and potential and expensive hazards everywhere. It certainly gets your adrenaline rushing!

Of course during these expeditions into National Forest lands, every possible mishap that my inherently pessimistic imagination can muster runs through my mind as I grip the dash with white knuckles! I am co-pilot and my job is to direct and navigate, and this can involve jumping out to check the suitability and status of the roads before we venture too far and get ourselves stuck! The driver is usually admirably calm and composed ....Well, until we hit an invisible trench in the road which causes well packed cupboards to fly open in every direction, scattering tin cans and the contents of the fridge skating down the middle aisle and under our feet.   Or an entire wardrobe empties itself into the corridor, coat hangers and all.  Still sounding idyllic huh?!  At this point in the journey I am usually praying to any god that will listen and crossing my fingers that the destination that we have Googled actually exists and that the GPS co-ordinates are correct.

However upon our arrival, the distress of the journey disperses instantly upon finding that in fact there is a suitable place for us to stop, suitably level and big enough for us to inch our 32 feet into. The beauty and tranquility of the spot humbles us, as we realise our insignificant presence in the big wide world and regard how truly lucky we are to experience it.

With that said, on more than a handful of occasions when we are in a more urban setting at various Walmarts, we are often woken repeatedly by the incessant air horn of a passing train which makes its presence known with no less than 5 hoots of increasing volume, or we may find ourselves by a huddle of idling trucks indulgently running their air-condition units and TVs all night; street cleaning trucks inch as close as they can to us to rid the "lot" of leaves and "trash".  Leaf blowing in the middle of the night?! Either that or simply the traffic noise of the neighbouring highway only metres away.   

 

I suppose that one of the hardest things to get used to when we first bought Winnie was trying to get to sleep in a random car park in a foreign country knowing the locals all carry guns!  Learning to relax and not worry all night that someone was going to bother us in the night certainly did take a few weeks for us to settle into and sleep the night through, though once we did then the sleeping in late began!

Some Walmarts are open 24 hours a day so the traffic eases but never ceases. For years I have used earplugs because like my Mum I am a light sleeper and I often wake up at the slightest noise. I have even accused Adam (who doesn't often snore without a beer inside him) of breathing too loud...which doesn’t usually go down too well!  Earplugs block out the background or white noise, but sadly nothing drowns out the trains! Oh and it seems that Americans love mowing their grass almost daily to perfection early in the morning around 7am,  but what they don't consider is that undisturbed I sleep happily till 9.30am these days.

One of the best things about this trip is, we no longer know or care what day it is! No more Sunday night blues or wishing the week away. Highly recommended! OK enough boasting, I don’t want y'all "hating on me" already!