Do I have to Park at the Truck Stop?

Hey don't waste your money on truck stop food. You should be buying it at Sam's, Costco or Walmart or something. Spending a lot of money on crappy truck stop food will make you fat and put you at risk. Also truck stops are the best places for people to wreck into you and do damage to your rig. Rest stops are much more quieter, and On Ramps should be last resort and don't be a Swift Driver and park on an exit ramp unless you want a car to crash into you. It needs to be an On ramp and it sucks because cars will fly past you rocking your cab. When I was OTR I preferred calling the customer sites and asking if I can stay there which about 50 percent of them said "yes". If I couldn't have that I rather stay a rest stop. Truck stops are good for showers and fuel and thats about it. Also buying a GPS will save you a lot of headaches. Especially in bad weather or when trucks or cars have wiped out street signs or the little mexican gangs down south have spray painted the road signs (my personal fav). Also GPS's have built in compasses and things of that nature very handy device with a touch screen. If you break down you can bring up the GPS and give them what exits you are between so the repair guy will stop calling you so you can sleep.

 

I don't even mind the West lot.

 

My wife and I travel a lot through different areas of the USA. I find that most states have really nice rest stops. There have been very few times when there was no spots available. We have gone on to the nearest truck stop when this has happened. We have done a lot of PU and Del off the beaten path and what we find is that in most towns of 3000 people or more there are malls that were designed to park hundreds of cars and at 9pm or later these lots are empty. We just park in some corner out of the way and nobody has ever hassled us. A lot of times we find a spot like this 5 minutes from our delivery the next morning. We never park in lots that are posted no trucks. I think that if you drive into a major urban area like NY city,Chicago, L.A. etc, in the evening hoping to find a spot in a truck stop you are just setting yourself up for a problem and there isn't going to be any spots available. In Canada malls are where it's at. Any big mall, nobody cares if you are not blocking anything. Another nice thing about parking in malls is that there is usually lots of food places within walking distance. We got stuck in Sacramento for two days because of a delivery screwup and we parked in a mall for two days pigged out on the best Mexican food ever and spent 3 times the layover money on all the good deals in the mall. Oh ya, that's the downside of mall parking my wife was born to shop and there we are living in a freaking mall half the time.

 

I don't mind parking in rest areas at all. Yea, the lack of food is a minus but if you have plenty stocked up in your truck it's never a problem. I don't have room for a fridge but I do have plenty of canned foods, dry foods, and boost/ensure meal suppliment drinks to get me by without a problem. I sometimes go a week without ever stopping into a truck stop for anything but to fuel up.

 

I'm starting out soon as a trucker and wondered if there is a risk of being boxed in if you park at Rest Areas.

 

You never get boxed in. Most rest stop parking is set up in a slant. If you start screwing up your day schedule and get stuck stopping late at night most of the parking will be packed and you will have to park down the exit ramp area of a rest stop which can kinda suck because a lot of time there is half pavement and half gravel and your truck will lean which is horrible to try to sleep when your truck is leaning to one side or the other. You just gotta trip plan it out. I use to trip plan for 10 hours giving me a 1 hour cushion to give me time if my stop was full.

 

Unless you park somewhere that's not a space, you won't usually get boxed in. There are a few where people will decide to park in front or behind you, but it's pretty uncommon. The slanting parking helps a lot, provided no one's decided in front of you, horizontally, is a good place to be.

 

if all else fails, knock on a door. youll find some people when they park in rest areas, will make sure theyve left enough room for the guy next to them to pull out without ripping the nose of the truck off, but fail to make sure theyve pulled up far enough to allow traffic to flow behind them. wake them up, alert them of the situation, and give them a rough idea of how far they need to pull up.

 

ive always had more "ladies" knocking in the east honestly.

a new bright point for the next time im back is that corey millers tattoo shop is about 4 miles from there. id jog it if i had too.

 

Let's not forget to use the locals for help.

When done unloading, I always ask them, "Hey, is there a good place to eat within walking distance of here?"

You can find some pretty good places that way.