After our cold and wet stay in Hot Springs, we were ready to high-tail it south to warmer weather! Our next planned campground was near Carlsbad, NM — about 800 miles away. Since we try never to exceed 400 miles travel distance in any one day, this required an overnight stopover on the road. As mentioned previously, our preferred option is overnight parking at a rest area, because of the convenience factor.

Our I-30 route across Texas didn’t offer many rest stop options. Most are older/smaller rest stops, with few truck parking spaces. Where there is truck parking, most are the “parallel” parking type, which can be problematic for us. We spied one new rest stop, with ample parking, about half way along our route. Perfect! We headed that way, only to find it blocked by road construction. Oops! The remaining rest stops along our way weren’t really a good option. It was too late (after 5 pm) to book a campground for the night. We had already traveled over 400 miles and were tired. We hadn’t really planned an alternative — but we needed to come up with one in fairly short order!

Allstays app to the rescue! Using the app, I spotted a Walmart about 12 miles up, just off the highway. Those of you that are RV-ers know that Walmart overnight parking is a Thing. Walmart typically allows overnight RV parking, unless specifically prohibited by local ordinance. We’ve stayed at Walmarts before, but have found them to be difficult to maneuver due to crowded parking lots, abrupt pavement transitions (scraping bottom of bus) and low-hanging tree branches (scraping top of bus). So, Walmart isn’t typically on our radar for overnight parking. Still, needs must, so we gave it a shot.

Although the parking lot wasn’t especially large, we found a good spot on the edge. We asked, and received, permission to stay — so it was a go! Our stay gave us an opportunity to pick up a few things, to boot.

The next morning, Jeff discovered he had left an attachment to his Viair portable air compressor back at the last campsite. Major bummer. Normally, he checks the air pressure in all of our tires at the beginning of every travel day. But, no problem, we were at a Walmart! He was able to find something that worked and readied our tires for travel.

So it all worked out. We found a quiet and safe place to stay. We ended needing some things — and Walmart had them. We may just have to put Walmart back on our list of potential parking spots!