Hard day - but we're on the road!

Hard day! Man…
Of course I didn’t sleep a wink (literally – not one minute) Last night. It’s a gene I inherited from my dad I think – this not being able to sleep just before a roadtrip. It always makes that first day or two hard.

My 11 hours working for the farm kicked my butt too. Non stop – and wonderful – but hard on a sleepless body.

Come 6 pm after I’d unloaded my truck back at the farm and it was time to head out hit the road for places far south – I was toast (and beyond). So, Antonio drove. He drove from Carnation to Federal way, where we were greeted with a bbq steak dinner and a nice long shower. Yummmmm – best recovery method after working hard in the sun there is!

By 8 pm we were on the road again – still Antonioi driving (and now getting the hang of all the Mohome’s little quirks. South we went. Got to Kelso for refueling and a driver switch then onto Vancouver WA. Was about 11 by now. Hunting down a Walmart to park and get some shut eye.

The first Walmart we came to, just north of Vancouver, had clearly posted “no overnight parking” signs and not another RV to be seen. We asked the young man gathering carts where there might be another. It was a funny conversation in itself – but he got us down the road to the Plain Hill Road Walmart – which I’d seen listed on Freecampgrounds.com as a spot that allows RVers to park overnight. Alas, we got there to find, again, not another RV in sight and a very friendly security guard that said that a new city ordinance had taken effect and there was no overnight parking.

To tired to go much further, I simply drove around the corner and noticed a tire shop and a Jiffy Lube. A small RV parked out front there all tucked in for the night – so I pulled in a couple of stalls down from them, turned off the engine, closed all the curtains and crawled into bed.

It was a noisy spot – but I was so overwhelmingly exhausted, sleeping was not a problem. Woke up about 5am and pulled out to continue the adventure.

Travel time: 6 hours
Actual time on the road: 4 hours
8 mpg – about $40 in gas