MARANA, Ariz. - Stars flicker high above the Sonoran Desert on a winter night. The tangy whiff of a mesquite campfire hangs in the frigid air. In the distance, a lone coyote calls and from the foothills comes an answering yip.
Huddled together, Clif and Betty Santa prepare for another night camping out. After cleaning the microwave, turning off the TV and shifting the clothes from the washer to the dryer, Betty steps out of the 39-foot Newmar Diesel RV and into an eerie, fluorescent light. Before her is a vast grid of white-painted stripes stretching into the void. Behold their campground: the Wal-Mart parking lot.
Theirs was not the only recreational vehicle moored under the moonlight, amid the acres of asphalt, at the Super Center north of Tucson. Massive motor homes and pickups with pudgy cab-over campers were bivouacked all along the edge of the blacktop. All of them camping. At the Wal-Mart.
They arrive uninvited, undaunted by local ordinances that prohibit overnight parking and evidently unfazed by the lack of amenities. But with recreational vehicle enthusiasts in the United States now numbering more than 30 million - and with national park campgrounds ever more crowded - the notion of bedding down in the parking lot of a busy 24-hour store is increasingly attractive.
It's called "boondocking," and it's big business. A 1999 survey found that one-third of campers had spent at least one night in a Wal-Mart parking lot. The well-heeled RVers stream into the stores for one-stop shopping: groceries, photo processing, eye exams, tires and, increasingly, RV-specific merchandise. Wal-Mart has even produced a road atlas that notes the locations of its stores in all 50 states and Canada, complete with information about local camping ordinances.
The RVers represent such a windfall that greeters at some stores make early morning treks to the parking lot to knock on doors and let sleepy customers know that the coffee's on inside at the Wal-Mart Cafe.
In Alaska, where RVs flock in the summer, the competition for business has grown fierce. One Wal-Mart in Anchorage welcomes campers with a note placed under the vehicles' windshield wipers. The manager of the Kmart across the street noticed the massing of motor homes and ordered a banner - "We welcome RVers" - to lure some over to his side.
