Ok, I am finally back at my house, and am able to update the day's events. There isn't much to tell, but I'll try to recall what I can.
As promised, I gave the parks in Asheville another shot. During the day, it was quite pretty indeed. I saw people generally strolling about and having picnics. Unfortunately, many of their areas, especially their buildings, don't allow guns, so I decided to just turn around and head back out.
On my way back, I did get very sleepy at one point. I drove to yet another rest area, and just went ahead and set up shop to sleep there. So far, I really love how I can just roll right over into my bed and sleep. I guess I was more tired than I thought, having stayed up late night driving all over the mountains. By the time I got up, the sun was about to set. I did feel very refreshed though, for what it was worth.
When I got up, I also realized that my car has been exposed to direct sunlight, and my car's AC was just struggling for all it's worth to keep up. I do park in the shade, but in this case, enough time has passed where the shade moved away.
When I got back to town, I went straight to the gym, mostly because it was the closest destination, but also because it's bad enough to go nearly two days without showering, but I also didn't want to go nearly two days without working out. I did a quick one, then came home to shower. I didn't do it at the gym because there was a bunch of people there and I didn't want to hog the entire bathroom for myself.
So, here I am, a quick experiment and road trip complete, and what have I learned? Well first and foremost, I am proud to report that I really do think I can do this. It did not go as well as I had hoped, but I think sometimes, I get stricken with the Han Solo effect, where I would run headlong into something thinking of course it's going to work, but with the added instruction, "Never tell me the odds." Haha. But if you consider the fact that I spent nearly two days out without having to pay for a single motel room, and I didn't feel as though I was suffering or anything, I would say that is a success.
However, when it's all said and done, I don't think this will work for me. Again, for a road trip and a personal experiment that I've never tried before, I think it was worth the experience. Now that I've done it though, I've decided that it's going to get really old really fast if I had to do this regularly, and I don't care for the wear and tear on the car either.
So here I am, back a day earlier than planned, but the upside is that there is still one more idea I haven't fully tried, and I can do this with the extra day I now have. I'll report back later with more details.
Travel update #2
May 18th, 2017 at 06:17 am
May 18th, 2017 at 01:11 pm 1495109461
May 18th, 2017 at 11:53 pm 1495147981
Alas, they are still unwieldy, and not at all stealthy.
I might have had to resort to a trailer, but for right now, I think even a small car like mine will do. Time will tell though.