Fast Travels and STUPID MISTAKES | e177

We’re thrilled to have our camper back together and ready to get on the road. We’re having to make a cross-country trek from Raleigh to San Diego in 4 days, so we’ll share our travels as well as share our embarrassing and costly storage mistake.

Places we Stopped

Flying J Parking Lot (Fairfiew, TN)

I don’t know why we didn’t remember, but Tennessee is not very helpful with staying overnight in their rest areas. There were signs that said no more than 2 hours. I didn’t want to get a knock in the middle of the night, so we ended up staying at a Flying J parking lot just west of Nashville, TN. We wanted to make sure we were not going to have to deal with the Nashville traffic in the morning and this worked out well.

Not the best, not the worst. It was pretty quiet and several vans were also staying the night.

Rest Stop west of Pierce, OK

Right off I-40, we stayed at this rest stop with no amenities, but an excellent place for a camper! There is the main paved circle for the truckers, but take your rig onto the unpaved area in the back where they store the concrete barriers. It’s far enough away from the trucks and the interstate so barely hear anything. We backed up to the fence and had a very peaceful (free!) night.

Junkyard on 66 Brewery (Grants, NM)

We are members of Harvest Hosts and we found this on their website. We talked to the owners and they are happy to have both folks with Harvest Host memberships and those without. If you like beer and a very relaxed chill atmosphere, this is your place. Most of the patrons there are travelers, so you’ll fit in just right. Great conversations and don’t forget to try their brisket as well!

Encore Mesa Verde, Thousand Trails (Yuma, AZ)

We are also members of Thousand Trails and thought we’d stay in an actual campground before heading into San Diego to store our camper. We could then flush our tanks instead of leaving them to “marinate” for a week. This is a typical Thousand Trails campground – you’re very close to your neighbor – but for a night, it didn’t bother us at all. This is a 55 and above resort, so at least one of you must be 55 or over. When we were there, many folks were out socializing and everyone was quite friendly. I also personally enjoyed watching the military jets take off at the airfield – groups of jets were taking off together. Fun to watch, but a bit noisy (though not late at night).

Our Camping Locations

If you’re interested in seeing all of the places we’ve stayed, I’m keeping a (mostly) updated list on Google Maps by Month. Enjoy!