Wednesday 23 July 2014

Wth Friends Like These...

I have a friends scattered all over the place - which usually means I only get to keep in touch online. One advantage of traveling around I get to meet up with people from all points in my life. In Abbotsford and Chilliwack I reconnected with some of my oldest friends. Each subsequent stop I've met up with a friend to hang out, throw a Frisbee or have a BBQ - waaaay better than Facebook! :-)

One thing I am conscious of, is that it would be very easy to rely on my social network to make life easier - with this in mind, I'm trying hard not to. I probably won't refuse a quick shower but other than that I want to try to keep this adventure as independent as possible.

I had a lovely visit with my long time friend John and his wife Danielle here in Kelowna. We had a BBQ and caught up (it's been a while!). However,  I slept in a Walmart parking lot over the driveway at John's for that reason. I also wanted to - I read on Reddit* they allow overnighters and I hadn't tried it yet. I meant to in Edmonton, however the Walmart there were part of a mall (they didn't control their lot - which would entail contacting security for permission). Here in Kelowna there were a lot of people like me! RV's and vans everything....

I expected to run into some odd characters - "Hey there neighbor! Ain't it great we are weird together?' types (perhaps a good op to make new friends?!) - but it was nice. Everyone kept to themselves. That said - Walmarts are usually near highways and the lights can be quite bright (they luckily they shut a few off after they closed) - so if you go this route, I suggest curtains or something. So far, my favorite method is the stealthily in residential areas and boondocking in the sticks.

I'm very curious to see how allowing overnighters would affect business (I'd imagine it would be positive). Smart move Walmart.





*My traffic spiked last night. My brother posted a link to my blog in /r/vandwellers/  - I will post some pictures today.

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