France Roadtrip Nightmare

To Whom It May Concern:

While traveling, it is common for one to experience a brief moment of “Oh my gosh this is my life!” For me, this usually happens during a private wine tasting in Portugal or watching the Eifel Tower twinkle at night while gnawing on a baguette. But there are few moments, even in life, where that glimpse of awe turns into a short reality. This moment happened for the six days I spent living out of a campervan through France. It was an accumulation of driving through the French Alps, hiking to waterfalls and rivers, picking wildflowers in a field, laying on the beach in Nice, eating fresh cherries we picked from a tree and the list goes on. Van life is what everyone made it cracked out to be – truly a dream.

Even in the moments of pure adoration of what I was experiencing, there were moments of pure detestation. Showering from a nozzle that is usually used to spray off your dishes in the freezing Alps wasn’t equivalent to hiking the Alps. Finding a parking spot in France where cars are the size of kindergarteners wasn’t as nice as strolling through the small towns. And when your car battery dies in the middle of the night because you stayed up too late drinking wine, you wonder how people do this.

However, there was one day in particular where I wanted to set the van in flames, cut my losses and stay at the nicest hotel I could find. Low and behold, here is what day five of van life looked like for me…

On night four, I parked the van in one of the unluckiest spots of the trip. Imagine twenty campervans and RVs in an apartment building parking lot next to a public tennis court with no toilets. The events of night four will only be disclosed to three close family members and maybe one friend. It’s the kind of information that could haunt you forever and ruin any chance of ever having a love life. No need to put it on the World Wide Web.

Day five rolls around and like every person who lives on Earth, when I awoke from my slumber, I had to pee. And not just slightly- I had to go. Knowing that there were no toilets, I poked my head out to see if I could sneak in the bushes behind the dumpster, but there were people wandering around and I was still dealing with PTSD from the night before to even risk the chances of the elderly RV families sneaking a peek. Do not judge me for the next few moments of my life. We all do drastic things in dire need situations.

As I am bouncing around to distract myself from peeing down my leg, I open the cabinet and grab a coffee mug to pee in… Coffee mugs hold anywhere between eight to fourteen ounces of liquid. The human body is a spectacular piece of art that can hold more than a coffee mug and I have never been in a situation where I needed to so solve this liberal arts math question.

If Haley has been holding her fluids for 14 hours and has consumed 30 ounces of fluid, how much of that fluid will not fit into a 12-ounce cup?

As I am peeing in my mug, a lovely warm liquid starts to pour out of the mug all over the floor, my hands, and clothes…. Needless to say, I rode with the windows down for the rest of the day.

Keep in mind, if there is no place for me to hide while using the restroom, there is not a place to hide and shower and I needed to make the ten-hour drive back towards Paris to return the van in the morning. So looking and smelling like white trailer trash, I packed up the van to head north.

I am not French and this is my first time ever driving around France, so I am using my GPS on my phone to get by. I am also not an Uber driver that has my phone suction cupped to my dashboard. When low and behold as I am driving down the highway the police stop me. I was blaring the song ‘Desperado’ by Rihanna trying to learn the lyrics, so I didn’t hear the sirens… I got pulled over by an officer hanging out the passenger window flailing his arms around to catch my attention. This was probably more dangerous than me using my phone.

In my mind I am thinking should I play the damsel in distress or the foreigner card to get out of this. I could play neither. Why? Because I smelt like pee, hadn’t showered, and looked like I was strung out on cocaine.

The officer walks up to the window and puts a breathalyzer in my mouth. At first, I was offended – then I remembered what I looked like and swallowed my pride. I definitely presented myself as something you would watch on ‘Cops’ and think, “How did that poor woman end up here in life?” I have never used a breathalyzer before, so when it took me roughly four tries to get it right I had not helped my case.

He made me step out of the car to fill out paperwork and as I am standing there looking at this heavyset officer, I genuinely thought “You know Haley if you are in much better shape than him. If you run you could get away. He just has your driver's license – not your passport.” So, I booked it to the van, threw it in reverse.

I genuinely wish that part of the story was true. Instead, I got a ninety Euro ticket for using my GPS.

After I recovered from this torture, I continued my long drive and officially learned every word to that Rihanna song. As a treat, I stopped off to take a shower… I can officially say I have now showered at a truck stop. Truckstop showers are similar to a run-down motel eight… there is a plastic lawn chair in the shower and only creepy people really use them. I swapped out my van key for the shower key and hoped for the best.

Almost every light in Europe turns on by a sensor and you typically do not think anything of it. I also shower longer than the average truck driver and I needed a deep cleaning after my morning. Halfway through my shower, the lights go off. No big deal, I’ll just jump around and they will come back on….

The sensor was outside of the shower…

This is where my mind somehow remembers every scary scene from ‘The Grudge’. The human brain works wonders because I watched that movie once and closed my eyes during every scene that was now my reality. It is pitch black, the floor is slippery, there are random objects lying on the floor that were not mine and I am not in a shower stall. I am locked in a solid 10x10 room with a spout in it. This is not the cute game where a bandana is over your eyes and you put your hands out in front of you, making your way to the door, touching random objects to guide you along the way. This was a game of how to not get Hepatitis, open a door in a public area while naked and make it out alive.

I am living proof that things do not get socially easier after middle school.

I ended up sleeping in a gas station parking lot that night. I found comfort knowing I could run to the restroom and grab a snicker at the same time. I wouldn’t trade this time for anything in the world, but then I remember how much petrol cost in France.

I dedicate this post to the strange truck stop attendant who told me I had a beautiful body. You saw me at my worst; you deserve me at my best.