Perhaps some of you should consider joining Sam's Clubs. They have zero problems with slide outs, staying hooked up, not staying hooked up, sitting outside in chairs, etc. All they ask is that you be a member and don't make a mess. You don't even have to buy anything from that particular store. You can even run a generator. When we spend the night, I am often told if they are running a special on steaks, burgers, etc and the store managers suggest we grill in their parking lot!
I currently don't have slides, but if I did, I really wouldn't care if someone objected to my putting them out if I had already gotten the okay from a store manager to do so. Perhaps some of you need to learn the response I learned when I first started homeschooling my kids. "That's your opinion and your opinion doesn't count with me" or my more common response.. "Okay. Bye." I also keep a baseball bat in the camper. It's amazing how many people will get violent over being told their opinion doesn't matter or if you don't do what they think you should do.
I do my grocery shopping in a truck camper. I leave the dog in it with the fans going. I often have people tell me I can't park "there" (pick a store) and they don't work at the store. My daughter used to take the truck camper to work when she had a late night shift followed by a morning shift the next day or if the weather was going to be snowy (someone had to open the store). She was always being told that she couldn't park overnight in the store parking lot. She would just tell them that she gave herself permission since she was store management. It really ticked some people off.
I have spent many nights in Sam's Club parking lots. They are my preferred parking lot.
1st choice: Sam's Clubs. I do 90% of my grocery shopping at Sam's. When traveling supper tends to be in a restaurant or a hot already baked all meat pizza and we love the rotisserie chicken. I can put together a nice supper for around $10-$15 (two of us) and have plenty of leftovers for lunch or supper the next day. Last night we had
Penne alla Vodka Pasta with Shrimp for under $11. It was one of those heat and eat meals they have and it looked good so we picked it up. We heated it up on the cooktop. It was good, heated up on top of the cooktop in under 15 minutes and had a surprising amount of shrimp. We are sitting in a state park just outside of the town we live in and I'm not gonna work too hard at cooking, especially since we couldn't check in until after 4PM. We had to go swimming in the lake. We hit the Sam's for supplies before driving the 20 miles out to the state park. It's far too windy and hot to cook outside most days. We had 21mph wind today with a high of 105*. Yesterday was 104* with 20mph wind.
2nd choice: Cracker Barrel. We like the food. The dog likes their nice thick grass. It's "cushy" to walk on. We can usually park overnight in one of their lots.
3rd choice: a W/E site in a campground/rv park under $30 per night. Free is even better. Amazing how many free w/e city/county parks there are in TX. Mostly on US HWYs. But I don't like to drive miles out of my way when traveling someplace.
4th choice: Walmart & truck stops. It just works out that way. I've only had one bad experience at a Walmart.
I suggest that everyone always use pads under their jacks. Too many places cheap out and don't use a thick enough asphalt in their parking lots. That's why they don't like heavy trucks and campers in their lots. On a really hot day, an RV can easily punch a hole in thin asphalt and both heavy trucks and RVs can leave "dips" where the tires sat. I did not know this until the cheap Walmart in Perry GA repaved their lot in 2006/2007 and put signs up banning RVs and trucks from parking (even for groceries). We knew the owner of one of the biggest paving outfits in the state (at the time) and he just laughed and told us why. He knew the people who paved the lot (it was too small for him to mess with as he was busing paving a highway). I suspect a lot of the bans are from heavy vehicles parking on thin asphalt.
BTW, those "No Overnight Parking" sign often do not mean what you think they mean. They often mean "Don't leave your vehicle unattended with for sale signs in it for weeks on end" which is what the "No Parking" signs meant at a local Walmart back east where I used to live. I was surprised to see someone post it online as not allowing RVs to overnight there. I know they could because I asked the store manager (we went to high school together) and my daughter worked at the DollarTree in the same strip mall and DollarTree also allowed overnight parking in front of their store as did the Ingle's grocery store at the other end of the strip mall. Ditto for the Walmart in Clayton GA. Just ask permission and have a backup location or two in case you are told "no" for some reason.
