#occupywalmart
When we told people about our plan to take the kids across the country visiting national parks, we typically got one piece of advice. “You better get reservations at the campgrounds. They fill up fast.” Reservations? Come on. This trip is about freedom, not carefully executed plans. No excessive preparation needed here. We are free spirits and we’ll figure it out along the way.
After visiting 17 national parks over the past couple months we have landed legal camping in exactly 1 park, Joshua Tree (which was amazing by the way). For the first two-thirds of the trip this was no big deal. We would land camping spots in state parks or RV parks. We slept in the parking lot of Old Faithful and near a pile of gravel outside Capitol Reef. We were making it up as we went and it was glorious.
Then the fires started and everyone on the west coast decided unanimously that regardless of day of week, it would be best to be at the beach. When we hit California, the campgrounds and RV parks were full, and the visitor centers in the national parks kept close eyes on free loaders and unwashed people like us trying to set up shop in their lots. We were at a loss. Then these words rang out in my ear like a siren’s song…”you could always just stay in a Walmart parking lot”.
A Walmart parking lot? That’s not really what we’re going for here. We’re going for pastoral. We’re going for bucolic. I grew up in the suburbs. I know Walmart and it’s not what I normally think of when I think of a family road trip. What’s that? It’s 10pm and I have a rhythmic foot pounding into my back. Oh and that sound. What is that sound? Oh that’s just Cormac, Ruth, Greta and Marnie. They have created a harmonized whining sound that appears to be a new discordant musical tone, perhaps designed by the devil himself to cause hearing loss and/or loss of the soul. Fuck it. Let’s try Walmart.
We pull in and find a nice spot under a street light. “See, this is nice.” I try to convince the kids. “Yeah” Sarah says with a slight waver. The kids pick up on her uncertainty. “I don’t feel comfortable here.” Marnie says. “It’ll be fine.” I say while questioning whether or not this will be the night that Marnie loses the last shreds of trust she may still have in her father. We sit there for a minute. We’re all waiting for someone to get out of the car when another car aggressively drives diagonally through the parking lot right at us. The driver pulls up to our passenger side and gives us a good scan. It’s a lady and she has a determined look on her face. She sees Sarah, Marnie, me then slams the gas exiting the scene. What the…
“Yeah, I can’t do this.” Sarah says. I’m a pretty progressive dude so I have no gender bias when it comes to being scared by other humans, so I agree with Sarah and we stay in a hotel for the next two nights. We all couldn’t wait to get out of the California camping scene. It was crowded and we longed for the wide open spaces of the Utah National Parks that so many people had told us about. We took off after spending some time with Sarah’s brother and brother-in-law in San Diego.
We stayed a peaceful night in Joshua Tree, then another night near the Grand Canyon at a lone hipcamp site and finally headed north to Utah. We were convinced that since school was probably back in session and it was a weekday we wouldn’t have any issues finding spots to camp. We were wrong. Apparently Utah is where you go when your state is engulfed in flames. Every RV park was full. Every campground was packed. I don’t blame the other people. I blame myself. I could have made a reservation at one of these parks weeks ago (even after learning for myself that reservations are 100% necessary). Instead I was probably spending time writing about becoming a cult leader, or making video tours of our camper, or thinking about a clever caption for an instagram post or watching An American Pickle for god’s sake. Hindsight.
It was dark as we drove through the beautiful Capitol Reef National Park. The curvy red walls looked like large goblins. You want to be close to them at first until you realize that they want to eat you, but by that time it’s too late to get away. You’ll live in these red goblin walls forever as their food. There were signs throughout the park saying ‘no camping’ but we figured that didn’t apply to the gravel turnout just outside the park. We had school the next day so we needed to make a call. Either stay here and wake up early to drive until we could get some cell service or keep driving that night. We were tired. We decided to stay. It would be fine. Out there with no cell service. No one else around for miles. Just us. There. Near the road so other people could see us. Make plans. Ambush us in the night. Do terrible things. Just a crew of rurals coming to teach us city dwellers a thing or two. Instead of sleeping I ran through scenarios and made plans. I’d do this with the bear spray. I’d do that with the hatchet. No Sarah would use the bear spray. I’d use the blunt side of the hatchet. Not the sharp side. I don’t want to kill them. No, I’d use the sharp side. They shouldn’t be messing with us anyway. This was the moment that I made preparations…
We got up in the morning, drove an hour and a half to a truck stop and did virtual school in the comfort of other humans. “Everyone okay with staying at a Walmart tonight?”. A unanimous “Yes”.
At this point we’re pretty burned out on National Parks. We get it. They are pretty. We haven’t messed them up the way that we mess everything up with trash and strip malls and commerce. We are taking their beauty for granted now so we should save some of them for later. We will hit one more park outside of Cleveland (exactly where you’d expect to run across a National Park) and we might hit Niagara Falls but other than those, it will be driving and sleeping at Walmart.
Walmart makes sense for us at this point. It’s the polar opposite of a National Park. Walmarts are all the same. They exist in neighborhoods that are all the same as one another. They have pretty much the same garbage inside each one. The same dried fruit packages. The same eggs. The same milk. The same Muzak playing that drowns out our generator. In no other place is it appropriate to play “Feel Like Makin’ Love” on a Wednesday morning at 7am. But at Walmart it makes total sense because people aren’t paying attention anyway or maybe they do feel like makin’ love. It is Hump Day after all. Either way, it fits.
Through all of this we’ve come to love sleeping at Walmart and it’s really made me appreciate the fact that this unwritten rule exists. Sure, I wouldn’t call Walmart “ethical”. In fact, in many cases I would call them “evil” considering the fact that their business practices have shuttered hundreds of thousands of small businesses, they pay people less than living wages with lousy benefits, they destroy solid brands through predatory pricing, they use sweatshops, prison and child labor and to top if off they’ve taken out corporate owned life insurance to profit from the death of their own employees.
But those prices are sooooo low and, if we’re being real, who hasn’t done all that stuff?
That being said, maybe they’re starting to turn it around. This whole “you can sleep in our parking lot” thing is a pretty communal concept. Maybe this is a step in the right direction for a new and improved Walmart. But the reality of any business is that it won’t happen if we as the customers don’t demand it. Let’s all lean in here. I encourage everyone to try this out. Bring your car, your van, your RVs, your family and friends and come down to Walmart for a night or two. Whether you want to actually financially support Walmart is totally up to you because it’s our dollars that give them power.
Maybe there’s a future where we can open up our own small businesses in Walmart parking lots. We can have food trucks, sell handmade crafts, jewelry, etc. It could be a whole new local economy right there in the parking lot of the only place left in town to shop. You can work from “home” from Walmart. The wifi is free and it’s pretty fast! The future can be bright and it can be bright with Walmart in it! All we have to do is demand it. All we have to do is Occupy Walmart!
Let’s do this together. Whoever you are and whatever situation you’re in. Take advantage of this peace offering from the giant retailer. It’s free! It’s safe. These lots are empty (at night). Let’s fill them up. There’s a ton of space. Trust me. I’ve been here for the past 3 nights and I’ll be here for the next 3 nights.
We’ve built Walmart into what is today and we can build it into the Walmart of the future. The power is in the action of the people. The power is in our pocketbooks!
Yes, yes, yes! Meet us out here in the Walmart parking lot and let’s build the future together!
“Feel like ma-kin-love tooooo yyyyoooouuuu!”
Chris
