Ray,

Good thread for sure.

I tend to only use WalMart for late overnight stays. If I am in a town before the time most RV parks close, then I have enough time to check in there. WalMart is generally an after 8pm until no later than 8am deal for me. I appreciate their hospitality, but don't want to wear out my welcome and I NEVER stay the day there or stay multiple nights. When we are at POG 4, some numbnuts in a Wonderlodge stayed at the WalMart there for three days. All day long.

I like rest areas and in Oklahoma and Texas they have "parking areas" along the Interstates, so it is just a place to shut down for the night. But these tend to fill up fast with trucks and the like, so you either need to stop early, say before 10pm or miss your chance.

I agree with Joe about truckstops. They can be way noisy and most have back in parking which doesn't work with the toad. In the summer, the AC and generator noise of the vintage coach covered this up well and made the sleeping easy. The Marathon is no where near as loud, so we manually adjust the fan to a higher speed to supply "white noise".

I never thought about parking by a police station. I'll have to keep that one in mind.

Arena or stadium parking lots are usually good if there are no pending sporting events and most equestrian or fair ground facilities have parking with hook-ups of some kind, so that is always a good place to look.

Asking locals works sometimes, but when Mike and I were in Baton Rouge, Sting found us a sweet spot in Port Allen right off the Interstate, so that was easy as well. Except for the 30 or so wild cats that were living on the side of the old parking lot in the bushes and the old ladies that kept driving up to feed them.