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Urban (Parking Lot) Boondocking

You have to admire the constitution of campers who can actually sleep in a noisy parking lot in town. Do engines ever get shut off? You get to enjoy trains, boom cars, loudspeakers on the pole lights, semi-trucks pulling up in the middle of the night, and perhaps worst of all, predatory strafing of your RV by the parking lot Zamboni.

So why do it? There are practical advantages such as minimizing driving while accomplishing shopping errands. And there are plenty of $30 per night RV parks that are half as loud as a free parking lot.

There are tricks in parking lots that will get you a few hours of sleep:
1) It is surprising how quiet a semi-truck can be if you are parked aft of its trailer, rather than sideways-adjacent to the engine and Thermo-King refrigerator.
2) It's also surprising how restful it can be to sleep next to a busy freeway, since the sound is so steady.
3) White noise helps quite a bit too. You can use music, a DVD movie, or whatever.
4) Stay up late at night and get up late in the morning. Of course it's pretty hard to make this adjustment when you're used to going to bed at 8 pm. In the summer, a late riser in the morning would miss the time of the day that's worth living for.

Tricks like this help, but it works better to find a dead-end street.

But my mission was accomplished: I have a fear and dread of the unbelievable rheology of wet Mancos Shale. My BLM campsite was at the end of five miles of the stuff, so I wanted out of there while the first winter storm blew through.

Comments

Unknown said…
I keep a set of silicone earplugs beside my bed, and have gotten used to sleeping with them in all night long. I don't use them all the time, but thery're usually invaluable whenever I want to enjoy the benefits of urban camping.
I've thought about them. Maybe I should give them another try and buy a couple different styles and brands to find which ones actually stay in my ear.

I could never get those little yellow foam ones to stay in my ear.
Unknown said…
Yeah, the foam kind never worked for me, but the silicone jobbies can take any shape, so should accomodate even the weirdest ears. Not that you've got weird ears or anything...
Ed said…
One of the VERY few benefits of gradually loosing ones hearing. I have no problem sleeping in Wal*Mart parking lots or truck stops.
Ed, indeed, I look forward to losing my hearing as I age. It will multiple the number of acceptable campsites tenfold.