Slowly but surely, I'm beginning to acquaint myself with the realities of a life on the road and some of the quirks that come with it. Though most of my nights so far have been spent in the company of friends and family, four times now I've slept in the back of the truck. Each of those nights came with its own set of unique challenges and surprises - some welcome, some not so much - but just like any move, it takes a while to establish a new routine.
I had slept in a truck bed several times in years past, back when I had an old Ford Ranger with a hardtop. Before I moved to Austin, while I was still traveling around Texas for job interviews, I slept in my truck a few times to cut down on lodging costs, so I'd already worked out a rough set of criteria to determine if a place would be suitable for car camping. Because the how and where of car camping is a subject a lot of people have asked me about, I thought I'd share a couple of anecdotes that've happened so far.
Predominant online wisdom would have you believe that sleeping in Wal-Mart parking lots is the way to go - apparently, the company even has an unofficial policy of allowing truckers, RVers, etc. to use their lots for overnight stays. That's all well and good but I have to wonder if any of the people suggesting Wal-Mart have ever actually been to a Wal-Mart. Tell me, when have you ever been there without random people screaming, or honking their horns, or making animals sounds, or doing whatever else crazy people do at 24-hour establishments during the hours just before and just after midnight? Hell, during my small town high school days, I was guilty of all of those offenses at one time or another, just because there wasn't anything else to do in Douglasville after 9pm. "Might as well go act a fool at Wal-Mart for a bit until these energy drinks wear off."
Take it from me, kids: don't sleep at Wal-Mart; hotel parking lots are where it's at. The trick, though, is finding the right one; you want to be selective, like Goldilocks. "This hotel is too swank, this hotel is too sketch, this hotel is juuuuust right." What you're looking for is that nice part of town where a hotel can keep their lobby open all night (for access to a bathroom) but not so nice that they can afford to keep a security guard on the payroll. Also, breakfast in the morning is a plus.
The day I arrived in Savannah, I made sure to give myself ample time in finding a place to park for the night. As I pulled off of the interstate, I slowly cruised from one hotel parking lot to the next, like a parasite searching for a host. Finally, I located my victim - an unsuspecting Best Western. Around the side of the building, next to a wooded lot I would later learn was the interstate right-of-way, I backed my truck up to the treeline and cut off the headlights. Only two other cars were in the lot, both adjacent to an access door off the side of the hotel. Anyone who saw me rearranging bags in the cab of the truck would assume I was just getting my things together before visiting my room. The trick is to back into a parking space, so no one has a clear line of sight to see me climb into the bed of the truck and not climb back out.
Once we were inside, I shuffled around a bit to get situated before turning off my lights and attempting to fall asleep. I say attempting because, as it turns out, maybe thirty yards beyond the treeline behind me, was an on-ramp for I-95. Also, I hadn't realized that just on the other side of the interstate was a truck stop, meaning that anytime a semi needed to get back on the freeway, it would do so about a hundred feet behind me. And because this on-ramp carried trucks up to the freeway, they had to shift gears a few times to get there.
I don't know if you knew this but gear-shifting trucks accelerating uphill from a standstill are loud as fuck. You'd think I would've realized that sooner but for some reason, it took me until about 3:30 in the morning before I'd had enough. Barefoot and still in my pajamas, I emerged from under the camper shell like a grumpy little butterfly roused from its chrysalis four hours too early. The change of venue only took a couple of minutes - there was no need to be secretive at that hour because no one in their right mind was awake. I pulled into the lot of the hotel next door - a Microtel Inn - and parked in the back corner, below an elm tree illuminated by the streetlight overhead. In the distance, various truck sounds bled together into a white noise almost like waves crashing on a beach, which is the sound I was after in the first place. So yeah, lesson learned there.
Another more unsettling change of venue happened just a couple of nights ago. As a general rule, I like to know where I'm going to be sleeping before dark, as its easier to judge a location's sketch-factor when you can see what's around it. Having picked up a pound of fresh shrimp from a dockside seafood market earlier in the day, I decided they would be easier to cook if I could build an actual campfire, as opposed to just heating up my little cast iron skillet over the Jetboil stove. Figuring I might be able to find some abandoned, hurricane-ravaged house to park behind, I pulled off onto a feeder street from US-21 somewhere around the central part of St. Helena Island. A large percentage of the folks who call this island home live at or below the poverty line, so single-wide trailers are a dime a dozen here. However, the island is also densely wooded, so finding a secluded place to park didn't take long. Down a long, straight two lane road, I passed trailer after trailer tucked back into the pines. For the most part they seemed lovingly maintained, so I didn't get the impression that my safety would be at risk out there. Eventually, I passed and circled back to a small clearing where presumably a trailer had once sat. With some careful squeezing, I pulled my truck back into the grassy clearing and parked it behind a cluster of longleaf pines. Within a half hour or so, my shrimp were sizzling over a small cooking fire as night descended on the island.
As much of a chow-hound as she is, Gabby has enough experience camping to know that, while I'm prepping dinner, she has a job to do - a perimeter security sweep. If she hears so much as a snapped twig, she'll go investigate. Folks have asked me "How are you comfortable sleeping in these strange places without a firearm?" Gabby, that's how. We've done this enough for me to trust her judgment.
Wake up dog, you're making me look bad.
(Source: The author's own)
While Gabby maintained her sentry post, I alternated between trying not to burn my shrimp and watching a light off in the distance, coming from the adjacent property I had passed right before discovering my little clearing. A light in and of itself isn't something to worry about - it's the ones that blink or move that you have to watch out for. I suppose it comes from years of urban exploring in dark places but I've become very attuned to noticing and interpreting lights. A blinking light can be indicative of a security system (motion sensors or cameras) and a moving light almost always has a person behind it, whether it's a flashlight or a car's headlights. It's the moving lights that really make me nervous. In places that should be dark, lights are rarely good news.
This particular light turned out to be a floodlight on the back porch of the trailer next door. Though I couldn't see the trailer, I could hear muffled laughter along with the occasional car door opening and closing. Because they were making no effort to keep quiet, I knew they wouldn't mess with me so long as I kept the campfire small and any noise to a minimum.
By the time the last perfectly pan-seared shrimp left my fork, even Gabby had come to ignore the voices from the neighboring property. If she wasn't worried, I wasn't worried. I buried the embers of my fire, packed up my cookware and began my new nightly routine of rearranging things in the cab of the truck - there are a couple of large containers (mostly cooking supplies) that I have to alternate between the cab of the truck and the bed, depending on where the dog happens to be. At night, while she's in the back with me, these containers occupy her day-to-day space up front and vice-versa.
As I reorganized my supplies, I kept the lights on in the truck bed - a set of two LED string lights adorn the shelves next to my sleeping pad, making it easier to see what I'm doing so that I can keep my headlamp beam on low. Because of how the truck was oriented (pointed toward the road in case I needed to make a hasty retreat), the glowing rear hatch faced the other neighboring property - the quiet one. Google Maps showed me that there was, in fact, a trailer somewhere over there but it was far enough away that I wasn't too concerned. Still, because I hadn't driven past it on the way to my clearing, I didn't know for sure what was over there.
Having spent the better part of the day at the beach, I needed to rinse off before going to bed. Temperatures were in the mid-sixties, so there'd be no need to heat up any water - I could just wet a washcloth and rinse off right there next to the truck. In the darkness, below a sky full of stars, I started to undress. I've seen enough horror movies to know that, being the pretty young thing I am, if I'm gong to get axe-murdered, it's going to happen when I'm buck ass naked out in the middle of the woods. So needless to say, I kept my guard up.
Maybe it was because my senses were already a little on edge but sure enough, it was then that I noticed a bluish-white light way off in the woods, emanating from this second property. I watched it for a moment and then lost it. A few seconds later, the light reappeared. Remember what I said about blinking lights? Now I started to get a little nervous. "It's probably another floodlight, it just seems to be blinking because of the trees between here and there swaying in the wind," I reassured myself out loud, just so I could hear a familiar voice. The light continued to flicker in and out of view...in and out...never quite with a discernible pattern. I also couldn't be 100% sure it was coming from a fixed point, either. In other words, it was blinking AND possibly moving - not a good combination. Gradually, voices started to drift in on the wind - low voices, not like the boisterous laughter of the other neighbors. "Okay, people are just out in their backyard, no big deal," I explained to Gabby, who had by now tuned in on the mysterious presence in the woods and was letting out a slow, deep growl at the edge of the treeline.
Whether Gabby had picked up on my unease or vice versa, my gut was telling me to get out of there. As I worked to undo my previous reorganization, hurriedly putting crates back under the camper shell, I kept an eye on the woods, pausing every few seconds to make sure that the light wasn't getting any closer - it seemed to be shining from a point well off into the woods but I couldn't be sure. Just before shutting it, I climbed up onto the tailgate to see if maybe a higher vantage point would provide me with any more information. Unfortunately, it did. All it took was for me to see one sweep of what was now clearly a flashlight beam for me to get my ass in the truck. As I slammed the tailgate, I heard Gabby let out a short, high-pitched bark - a nervous sound I've only heard her make a handful of times in all the years I've had her. If Gabby's freaked out, that alone is reason enough to bail.
With complete disregard for discretion, I cranked up the truck and we took off through the grass, pine saplings swishing across the doors. With a jarring thump, we were back on the road. As we passed by that adjacent property, I slowed down to see if I could figure out what it was that I'd seen but the forest revealed only darkness. Continuing down the road a piece, I paused at a stop sign to let my GPS catch up. Locating the closest hotel, I pointed the truck toward Frogmore, specifically a Quality Inn. Everything would be okay once I got to Frogmore - surely no harm ever came to anyone in a town with a name like that.
Having backed the truck into a parking space at the Quality Inn, while Gabby and I shuffled into our respective sleeping positions, a booming laughter once again drifted across the wind. Happy hour at The Bela Luna Cafe next door was winding down - at 7:05 pm, I'd just missed it. Under the soft glow of my reading lights, I thumbed though a book for a couple of hours to let the adrenaline flush out of my system and wondered what the guy with the increasingly boisterous laugh was so happy about for a Tuesday.
What's so special about a Tuesday? You know, just your average, run-of-the-mill, sleeping in the back of a truck after avoiding an axe-murderer Tuesday.
Yep, welcome to my life now.
CWO
It's not a bad life.
(Source: The author's own)