The last time you spent the entire night in a car?

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Do tell, do!

― andy --, Monday, 13 March 2006 19:59 (twenty years ago)

Friend's wedding this fall. Too drunk to drive, slept in the car.

― gbx (skowly), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:00 (twenty years ago)

Some rest stop in pennsylvania, driving from michigan to NYC for the rescheduled CMJ in 2001.

― kingfish da notorious teletabby (kingfish 2.0), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:03 (twenty years ago)

November before last when my brother and I drove from Dallas to Detroit in 16 hours to see the Beastie Boys. On the way back home (a slower drive) we slept parked in a business park outside of motown and then in a Walmart somewhere near St. Louis.

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:20 (twenty years ago)

Three years ago on the way to New Orleans. We were driving the entire time, though....does that count?

Other than that, one time outside of Shaw, Mississippi at a Faulknerian Bacchanal - I was drunk and no where near in shape to drive home. The Oldsmobile had comfy seats that day. Comfy.

― Big Loud Mountain Ape (Big Loud Mountain Ape), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:23 (twenty years ago)

on a camping trip a long time ago. it was too cold to sleep outdoors so i grabbed my blankets and stayed in the car with the heat on.

― PRIVATE HELL 36 (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:25 (twenty years ago)

do entire nights spent on buses and trains count?

― PRIVATE HELL 36 (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:26 (twenty years ago)

Ha! Parking lot of Waffle House in Wapakoneta, OH on the way back from North Carolina, because a) the headlights on my car didn't work so we couldn't drive after dark and b) we didn't find our campground before dark. We just found the Waffle House. Newsflash: sleeping in cars is UNCOMFORTABLE, YO.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:27 (twenty years ago)

The first night my bro I and were sleeping in the car (some eclipse or something) I developed some weird eye infection. I think it was b/c it was a. freezing and b. the tightly closed car created some sort of funky lab experiment in my eyeball. Also I had to crouch outside in the freezing pre-dawn to pee as commuters drove by. FUN!

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:29 (twenty years ago)

Driving from Chicago to New York overnight in mid-December. I slept for most of the way from northwest Indiana to eastern Pennsylvania and was then roused at around 7 AM to drive the rest of the way to NYC.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:30 (twenty years ago)

Not that I haven't forced myself into the situation, but I'm creeped out by sleeping in cars along national highways.

― nabis (especially outside of detroit, dude) co (nabisco), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:30 (twenty years ago)

After a Fall concert - I was going to stay with my parents instead of driving home, but I forgot a key and they didn't hear me knock.

― Dave NSFW (dave225.3), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:31 (twenty years ago)

i think this should only count if the car is not moving.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:32 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, in which case: never.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:32 (twenty years ago)

although if the car IS moving and you're the only occupant, and you're sleeping, we can allow that.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:33 (twenty years ago)

haha.

I feel like I'm never in cars. And when I do get in a car, I'm excited about it, in a hang-my-head-out-the-window way. Sleeping in cars, however, is the suck. I've done it while camping, due to lack of a tarp.

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:34 (twenty years ago)

Driving through a mountain in France close to the Swiss border.
They closed the tunnel through the mountain to 'do work' overnight (no warnings on the motorway, natch!) So only option was to sleep in a queue until the tunnel opened.
Probably about 10 years ago

― George C, Monday, 13 March 2006 20:35 (twenty years ago)

At a bachelor party a couple weeks ago, I was reminded of an incident that I had repressed deep inside. About ten years ago, after a drunken night in San Francisco, I woke up in a little car by the side of a rural road near Petaluma. It was blinding hot, all the doors were open, and there were hippy stickers on the bumper. I left the car and went and found a bus stop.

To this day, I have absolutely no idea whose car it was, or how I got there. At the time, it didn't seem all that noteworthy! But with hindsight it's pretty scary, I hope I didn't kill anybody.

― andy --, Monday, 13 March 2006 20:56 (twenty years ago)

But I've slept in cars quite a few times since then. Mostly vans, though, so I don't know if that counts.

― andy --, Monday, 13 March 2006 20:58 (twenty years ago)

winner.

― Dave NSFW (dave225.3), Monday, 13 March 2006 20:58 (twenty years ago)

a few years ago i spent a night UNDER a car. luckily i woke up before the owner (whoever it was) drove to work

― dave q (listerine), Monday, 13 March 2006 21:05 (twenty years ago)

It was the aliens that took me, and left me in a Civic.

― andy --, Monday, 13 March 2006 21:06 (twenty years ago)

dave, are you a stray cat?

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Monday, 13 March 2006 21:15 (twenty years ago)

last year i helped a friend drive $20 mm worth of art from nyc to portland, oregon and back. going back, we left pdx around 1:30 am monday night/tuesday morning, and arrived in nyc around 10-11 am, stopping only for gas and food. woulda been back quicker but we hit a snowstorm that followed us from the iowa/illinois border all the way to pennsylvania (which also caused us to hit chicago/northern indiana rush-hour traffic).

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 13 March 2006 21:24 (twenty years ago)

whoops should read:

we left pdx around 1:30 am monday night/tuesday morning, and arrived in nyc around 10-11 am thursday morning, stopping only for gas and food.

doin' it in a few hours is, like, impossible when nebraska exists.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 13 March 2006 21:30 (twenty years ago)

Nebraska: a long way across.

I last slept in a car in August 2004, parked on a sheep farm with lots of other cars after my friends' all-night wedding party. I'd figured I would be too drunk to set up a tent (and I was right) so crammed a foam mattress on the folded-down seats of my station wagon and passed out. It would have been more comfortable had I not been parked on a slope so that overnight the blood pooled in my feet and somehow amplified my stinking hangover.

― sgs (sgs), Monday, 13 March 2006 22:42 (twenty years ago)

Last and only time: when I was in elementary school and went to Nags Head with a bunch of families: they had me and another little guy (who was my pre-school playmate and paramour but who I was since astranged from as he had moved to Wisconsin) sleep in the van because there wasn't enough space in the cottage. I think they tried to convince us that this was a fun adventure, like having our own trailer.

― Mary (Mary), Monday, 13 March 2006 22:47 (twenty years ago)

My grandfather died peacefully in his sleep. Although it's a shame about the other four people in the car he was driving at the time.

― Heath Pardoe (badg), Monday, 13 March 2006 22:55 (twenty years ago)

I've never spent the entire night in a car. Trains yes, coaches yes.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 13 March 2006 22:57 (twenty years ago)

I drove straight to NYC from Little Rock once, stopping only for about twenty minutes on an on-ramp somewhere outside Buchanan, Virginia. I tried to sleep in the cab of the truck I was driving, but I kept thinking that there were people beating on the windows. I finally gave up and continued driving, making it to DC by dawn and NYC by lunchtime.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:01 (twenty years ago)

What an interesting question. The last time was in 1999, in Arizona somewhere because it was too late to pitch a tent and there were a lot of big scary bugs that made us not want to sleep right on the ground.

The secret to sleeping comfortably in the car, I've found, is to sleep in the front seat with the seat pushed all the way back and the back of the seat cranked to it's flattest plane. I'm pretty content to never have to sleep in a car again, although I could think of many worse places to have to lay my head.

― Nutsy the Squirrel (pullapartgirl), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:02 (twenty years ago)

Five years ago, drunk, my truck bed. I plan to do much more of this in the summer, maybe I'll even spring for one of those truck tents.

Never actually slept inside of a car overnight, I don't think I could.

― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 00:36 (twenty years ago)

Do the words "car camping" mean ANYTHING to you people? Do they? Oh... Sorry.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 00:40 (twenty years ago)

I've tried and failed. Too uncomfortable, too loud, too cold and most significantly, too paranoia-inducing. I just ended up staring at headlights, hypnotized, smoking cigarettes and drinking Fresca and feeling like I was leaving my own body.

― Abbott (Abbott), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 00:47 (twenty years ago)

I've done it too many times to count, sometimes out of necessity but othertimes I just don't want to spend the $$ on a motel room. I almost always never stop at a designated "rest area," I usually stop at an all-night diner or truck stop (where there are a lot of people) or in the parking lot of an upscale road motel (Holiday Inn and Best Westerns preferably).

Like Nutsy said upthread the secret is to push the seat back all the way flat. Usually I'll pile a pillow in between the seat and the door and unbelievably I can actually get a pretty good rest out of it.

― The Equator Lounge (Chris Barrus), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 18:22 (twenty years ago)

1964. My parents took my family on a long cross-country trip, camping for 8 weeks. My brother and I slept in the car every night. I was two years younger, so I had to sleep in the front seat with the steering wheel.

― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 18:26 (twenty years ago)

God I miss road-tripping.

Do we have a thread on that? My favorite thing about college was the annual spring break road trip from New England out to the desert. NON-STOP.

― gbx (skowly), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 18:34 (twenty years ago)

I drove overnight from Providence RI to my hometown in Maryland in fall 2004, uh, after realizing at approx. midnight that I needed to get the hell out of Providence for a while.

I did sleep in my car about five years ago in College Park, Maryland, after driving up there to visit some friends & their housemate accidentally locked the door they'd left open for me & no one heard me knock. It sucked, it was cold and my car is pretty small and I doubt I got more than two hours' sleep really.

― dar1a g (daria g), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 18:37 (twenty years ago)

I guess the most uncomfortable night I've ever spent in a car was in Kulgera, Australia just N of the Northern Territory / South Australia border. We'd been driving most of the night and needed gas but the gas station didn't open until 7am. Since it was the middle of the Outback we didn't really have any other choices so we just sat and tried to sleep in the cold. I contemplated sleeping on the ground outside, but it was just too dang cold out.

― The Equator Lounge (Chris Barrus), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 18:55 (twenty years ago)

driving back from glasgow.. got too tired. slept in the picnic area of the most beautiful motorway station (it was pitch dark)

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 19:16 (twenty years ago)

Once when I was a teenager at college - I decided on the spur of the moment to come back home to see my parents for the weekend and arrived at about midnight on the Friday night. They were fast asleep, and had this annoying habit of bolting the inside of the front door at night (so my key wouldn't work). I slept in the car on the driveway, and although it wasn't too uncomfortable (it was an estate car, and the back seats folded down to give plenty of room to lie down in it), I nearly froze to death.

The only other time was when The Bloke and I had decided to go on some camping trip down on the south coast somewhere. We were going to drive down on the Saturday morning (and had pre-booked a spot in a small campsite), but then decided to go straight after work on the Friday night instead. We somehow managed to get lost and ended up in the New Forest in the dark, so we slept in the car overnight. Very early on the Saturday morning we were awoken by a Park Ranger type guy knocking on the car window and telling us to move on because overnight car stops aren't allowed in the forest, and threatening us with fines. He was quite scary.

― C J (C J), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 08:57 (twenty years ago)

nine years pass...

slept under the car in the rain after leaving keys behind a decade or so back that was ok

was locked out of house over Xmas slept in car in subzero weather that was rubbish

― post you had fecund thoughts about (darraghmac), Monday, 16 March 2015 04:20 (eleven years ago)

i did a three-day cross-country amtrak trip in september, if that counts. i don't really sleep in cars that often, although i have nothing against the idea. last time might have been on a road trip in 2005, but i can't remember now.

― Textured Vegetable Personalities (get bent), Monday, 16 March 2015 05:57 (eleven years ago)

came home from midnight bowling age 14, forgot key, went in garage, slept in mom's 93 honda accord, awoken around 7:00 when mom opened the door that connected house to garage (which had been unlocked the whole time apparently).

― brimstead, Monday, 16 March 2015 06:06 (eleven years ago)

It's been 24 years. Visiting Dad from college, near passing out because I didn't start til 9 PM. After a harrowing drive over the 18 mile Achafalaya Basin Bridge, decided to sleep in a park in Baton Rouge. I remember waking up cold, and with a neck ache.

I've since made a point of finding the nearest cheap motel if my road trips take me over the 9-10 PM mark. They're all owned by the Patel caste, and rooms smell of cigarettes and disinfectants, but at least I'm not waking under several feet of swamp/snow/carnage.

― You and your damn elves, I'm sick of it! (Sanpaku), Monday, 16 March 2015 06:35 (eleven years ago)

Glastonbury Festival, 1986 or thereabouts, one of the muddy ones. Car looked much nicer than the tent.

― Mark G, Monday, 16 March 2015 09:29 (eleven years ago)

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