When you ‘go where the wind takes you’, you never know where you’ll be when the sun goes down. BUT you do know there will be a Walmart near by!
Did you know most Walmart stores will let adventure seeking RV-ers park in their lots over night?
I had no idea, but it seems like most people we tell, already know.
But just in case you are in the dark, like me, here’s the lowdown on parking your RV in a Walmart parking lot:
Straight from the Walmart site’s FAQs page…
Can I park my RV at a Walmart store?
While we do not offer electrical service or accommodations typically necessary for RV customers, Walmart values RV travelers and considers them among our best customers. Consequently, we do permit RV parking on our store parking lots as we are able. Permission to park is extended by individual store managers, based on availability of parking space and local laws. Please contact management in each store to ensure accommodations before parking your RV.
Smart, right?
Because the next morning when us wild-RV-lovers realize we are out of milk in our Glamper, we can just bee-bop into Walmart for some milk and some cookies and some socks and some… you get the idea.
I was skeptical.
And I thought we were going to get murdered the first night.
True Story.
We didn’t.
And there were other Glampers parked as well. Normal people, like us.
We ended up staying in a few Walmart parking lots throughout our RV Adventure. And we only got kicked out of one.
True story.
But that’s a whole other blog post. Involving hippies.
Stay tuned for more.
How to Quickly Pack for a Trip with Kids
Let’s start at the very beginning.
A very good place to start.
When you travel, you begin p-a-cking.
(you know you sung that in your head!)
If you know me, then it’s no surprise that I did absolutely no preparation for our RV Adventure.
I posted the picture below on Instagram with the caption, “The adventure begins! We were on the road by 1:15. Which is shocking because (type A’s look away), I hadn’t packed one item of clothes or planned any meals. For reals. And we had Eli’s kinder performance/party this morning from 10-12:30.”
I’m a pretty carefree gal. But I actually do have a pretty good system for packing.
And presenting “How to Pack Clothes for a 14 day RV Trip.”
I make our bed into a grid for the clothes, then depending on the number of days in the trip (and if we will have laundry access), I choose a number then fill the grid.
Easy right?
Here is what the grid looked like for the kids clothing before this 14 day RV trip.
I knew, at a minimum, we would be able to do laundry in Yellowstone, which was at the half-way point of our trip. (We ended up doing it a lot more often.)
What I packed:
7 tops (including one church shirt for each boy)
2 pairs of pants
3 pairs of shorts (including one skirt for each girl)
2 sets of PJs
1 jacket
2 dresses for the girls (one was a church dress)
Bathing suit
10 pairs of underwear (I always over-pack underwear, but it stresses me out to think that I might not have clean ones and they take up such little space.)
1 pair of tennis shoes
1 pair of flip flops
Filled the grid, and viola, I was done.
Though I did miss something. Did you notice?
Something us California folks don’t use very often.
SOCKS!!!
I forgot socks.
So we bought some. No big deal.
They usually go right next to the underwear in the gird.
(We forgot umbrellas as well, but that’s besides the point… now we’re talking clothes.)
And just like that we were off!
I’ll be sharing the first leg of our journey next!
Go Where the Wind Takes Us
After my mom died I wanted to get away.
I told Brad we were going on vacation.
A good one.
Despite the fact that we DON’T have money and that we DO have 4 small children.
I wanted sun, sandy beaches and pina colodas. We looked into a cruise first. Did you know you can’t have more than 4 people in a room? AND if you have more than 4 people in your family an adult has to be in each room. So Brad and I would have to be in separate rooms (boo) and the vacation costs would double!
That’s ‘Big Family’ discrimination. (In my humble opinion.)
Anyway, I didn’t mind spending some money we didn’t have on a vay-cay, but mama also wants new windows, so we started looking for something else.
How about flying somewhere totally new and different? … Hawaii… Florida… maybe New York! Um… did you know plane tickets are effin’ expensive for 6 people? And there is the cost of a hotel. (Does it stress anyone else picking out a hotel you’ve never seen??) AND renting a car.
Eeeep!
It’s hard to justify the cost of a memory-filled-vacation when half the vacationers probably won’t remember the trip. I was ready to throw in the towel, but Brad insisted our family needed to regroup.
He was right.
We knew we wouldn’t be on a luxury boat or flying to a exotic destination.
So where would we go?
Mmmm…I want to be in the middle of nature.
I want my brain to be in awe of God.
Maybe a bit off the grid… with animals!
Yeah… nature, far away, and wild animals.
Yellowstone, yo!
We wanted to make new memories with our little family.
Camping in Yellowstone!
Now I love camping, but let’s be real – camping isn’t a vacation for a mom.
It’s like a negative vacation.
Camping is an anti-vacation for a mom of small children.
How about an RV?
I threw up this comment on FB…
And it’s funny, because I wasn’t trying to be funny.
I was totally serious.
And it turns out, our friend’s mom has an RV that she rents out to friends. A nice RV. With a fridge and potty. And for a deal. Yes, please!
Our cup overflows.
We started planning our route and it turned out we would be able to visit at a lot of our out-of-town friends and family. The trip started to magically fall into place. That was amazing.
We were excited to visit people but the main purpose of this mission… I mean vacation… was to be together with each other.
To regroup.
Refresh.
We wouldn’t be tied down to any set plans or visits and we wouldn’t ever feel rushed or pressured to be in any certain location. We took one day, sometimes one hour, at a time and did whatever we wanted. We deemed this vacation the ‘go where the wind takes us’ vacation. We pulled off the road for anything we thought looked neat, we called friends/family a day (maybe an hour) before we would be near them to see if they were free. If they weren’t that was fine, if they were, then we would meet for a snack, a meal or a visit.
Maybe stay in their house or in their driveway.
Laundry, showers and hugs goodbye.
Sigh.
It was a phenomenal trip!
I’m going to blog about it at length, just in case you want to do a trip too.
(I’ll break it up with the start of our house tour and other fun stuff too!)
But here are the Cliff’s Notes of our route: Orange County CA – St. George UT – Colorado Springs CO – Denver CO – Cody WY – Yellowstone National Park WY – Boise ID – Portland OR – Eureka CA – Auburn CA – and home to the OC again!
That’s 9 states. (the route takes you through the corners of MT and AZ)
13 nights.
4,000 miles.
A million memories!!!
