Another Walmart night

Tuesday, 13 March 2018

Walmart parking lot, Jax

When I woke up this morning, I found I was one of 10 RVs parked here, plus 2 semis and 2 semis+trailers and 2 semis+car transport trailers.  Apparently, Walmart’s parking lot hospitality is well known.  The Lowe’s parking lot right next door had zero vehicles parked there – except for the contractors parked by the front door waiting for it to open.

They really did try to accommodate us at Camping World but had to insist that I and all pets get out of the RV while they did their thing – in our case, for about 5 hours.  They have a customer lounge, so first I took the cat’s crate in there and set it up; then I put the cats into their cardboard carrying cases, which I had the presence of mind to flatten out and bring along underneath, and take them in and put them in the crate; then I leashed the dogs and took them in.  Quite the production and all the employees said nice things to all of them as time passed.

The lounge was already occupied by a very nice couple from Québec, who didn’t seem to mind the dogs being who they are.  Things got complicated when another woman came in with 3 Shih Tzu type dogs, but the CW folks put her/them in another room.

From time to time, the repair guy who was in charge of my problem would stop by to tell me where we were in the process, and now and then I’d take the dogs outside to walk around their grounds.  One thing you can say for an RV place, there’s always lots of room.

By about 11:30, the situation was the sealant (i.e. caulking) around the shower skylight had deteriorated and needed replacing.  It’d take them about 2 hours to do it.  My extended warranty was so new it hadn’t been entered into the warranty people’s computer when CW called, so my CW guy faxed them a copy of my contract to prove it existed.  But of course, the repair still needed approval and there was no telling when or if that approval would come through.  I couldn’t take the RV out without upsetting CW’s whole system and they couldn’t let me stay the night on the lot because they have an electrified fence all around it and what if there’s an emergency, they said.  And I could see their point.  The cats had finally fallen asleep but the dogs were plenty alert and I didn’t want to keep them there any longer than I had to so I said fix it, I’ll pay for it and fight with everybody later.

Quel mess, as my momma would say.

Meanwhile, figuring tonight was another Walmart night, I made reservations in South Carolina for the next 2 nights.  Those 2 nights together will cost me as much as 1 night in Florida or 3 nights in Georgia.  Such a deal.  And from there, I’ll assess what’s going on in the northern states.  Another customer at CW told me there was snow as far south as Asheville, NC, so who knows.

I think tonight I’m going to use my generator for a while.  I already used it so I could watch the local weather report and I'd like to see what's on the national news.  If I can stay awake long enough, I’ll watch NCIS – it comes on at 8:00 here, because it’s Eastern Time.  The generator gets me a fully functional RV, including sockets that work and a TV and the frig.  Drydocking gets me nothing that isn’t powered by propane or a couple hours of spare battery.  But generators are noisy.  Still, weather reports are helpful.