Tomorrow night, I'll be spending the night away at Camp Encourage, a summer camp I attended a little over a decade ago and is holding a special "alumni session" this weekend. The campground is located near Parkville, MO, just west of where I-435 crosses the Missouri River south of KCI Airport - about a 25-mile drive (and 15 miles straight-line) from my apartment in Kansas City.
That got me thinking: where is the closest place to home you've spent the night while still being away from your home itself? As for me, it was in 2012-14, my first couple years as a student at the University of Missouri in Columbia; at the time, I was living in Hatch Hall, one of the on-campus residence halls, while my parents lived in a house a couple miles across town (which is where they still live today).
In addition, regarding where you have spent the night close to home but not actually at home, what were the reasons for such? Aside from "townie" students doing their studies at their local college but deciding to live in a dorm or student apartments to give themselves the full-scale "off to college" experience (as I did), or people being hospitalized (or worse, in jail) for whatever reason, I believe the reasons primarily fall into to one of the following categories:
- Having to evacuate one's home due to some disaster like fire or flood damage, or a tree falling on the roof - or indirect causes such as contamination or riots in nearby areas, or even for planned large-scale maintenance such as home renovation or pest fumigation
- related to the above point, being stranded at work, a store, a restaurant, etc. during a blizzard and having to spend the night there until the roads are cleared (I believe this happened to many residents of Buffalo in 1977, Atlanta in 1982, and Chicago in 2011)
- in cities with commuter train networks like NYC or Chicago, taking the train from a suburban home into the city for some evening event and then having to spend the night in the city due to missing the last train before the next morning
- on a happier note, having a party at some friend's or nearby relative's house and staying overnight there
The point is: whether for any of the reasons listed above or for some completely different reason, where is the closest to home that you have slept overnight without actually being
at home? Looking forward to seeing your replies.
Three miles away, friend's house for a week while my mom was having radiation chemo.
Nowadays the campground that we frequent north of Oakhurst in Sierra National Forest. It is about an hour from home.
Surprisingly difficult to come up with a place close to where I currently live. Certainly when I was growing up, I stayed overnight for various reasons close by, friend's sleepover and even school or church activities. Camps were further way.
But, from where I live now, since I've lived here? Not very close at all. Probably a couple of hours away for a work conference.
Childhood sleepover at next-door neighbor's house.
Pretty much the same as Big John, except I grew up in a cul-de-sac and the childhood friend lived 2 houses away.
Probably one or more all-nighters at my office in downtown D.C., about seven miles driving distance from my apartment in Arlington VA.
If you're not going to count that, there's the night I spent in a recovery bed in my health plan's medical office building in Tysons Corner VA (about 10 miles from home), waiting for a time slot to open at an MRI machine, which happened just before sunrise.
My childhood home had a propane tank for heat, so I think there was a night one winter when I was a kid we stayed at a hotel in town because it ran out.
Not to be gross, but I've spent the night at ladies' houses that didn't live more than a half a mile away from my house.
Overnighted at a local hospital, only 10 miles from home.
Crashed at friends' places due to missing the last bus home a few times, most >25 miles.
For my current house, 17 nights at 2 hospitals after my stroke which are a 10 minute walk away.
Sheraton Dallas Hotel, Dallas, Texas - December 31st, 1999 to January 1st, 2000 because we attended a nearby New Years concert at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
Of course, this ignores the Homes2Suite that I stayed at for three weeks when I moved to Dallas while my nearby home purchase was being finalized.
Spent several nights in Philly over the years, about 10 miles away
If were gonna include hospitals, spent 2 nights in one when I had appendicitis. I didn't leave my neighborhood. It's on the opposite side of my community, about 1 mile away.
I can think of a handful of examples ...
• A few miles away at a hotel during a heat wave due to my A/C going on the fritz and the soonest appointment was in a couple of days. It was approaching 90°F inside my house.
• (Decades ago in my 20's) visiting a friends house for a party, having one or two beers too many, and crashing there for the night.
• (cough) girlfriend apartments/houses
• One hobby of mine is competitive duplicate bridge. For a multi-day tournament, I would sometimes stay at the tournament site, rather than commute every day - especially if I had entered an evening game, as well as the next morning's game. Even if the tournament site was only 20-30 miles away or so.
My paternal grandparents lived on the North Side, about a mile from Wrigley Field, so I could attend Cubs games with them and spend the night afterwards. This was when they still played only day games at home, as night games weren't permitted until 1988, the year I graduated high school.
For L.A., it was at the hospital where my daughter was born; my wife's water broke one evening and I drove her there and stayed up all night, not resting until she actually had the baby.
And for Seattle, it was at a downtown hotel celebrating the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002.
At a relative's house the next town over.
Quote from: Big John on August 23, 2024, 07:33:58 PMChildhood sleepover at next-door neighbor's house.
That this isn't the answer for almost everyone heavily confuses me. Maybe not next door but within a short-walk distance.
Yeah mine was across the street at a friend's house back in elementary school. I even walked home for breakfast.
Last year, when I moved, the movers picked up our stuff and wouldn't be able to drop off at the new place for a couple of days. We stayed at a hotel about a mile from a house that we still owned but didn't have any stuff in it. Then drove to another hotel about a mile from the new place that didn't have any furniture either.
Adding...During Shelter-in-Place nights, I've spent the night at my NJDOT yard, just a mile away from my house during snowstorms.
Not counting childhood sleepovers, or a couple of times sleeping at my parents' house after I moved into my own place (typically due either to drinking too much or staying there in the days right before my father died), the place that comes to mind is the woods at the old "Burke Lake Wilderness Area" at Burke Lake Park here in Fairfax County. Back in the mid-1980s, our Boy Scout troop had a camping trip there every September in part to help assess what equipment the new kids needed to get for future trips.
Quote from: SectorZ on August 24, 2024, 08:17:45 AMQuote from: Big John on August 23, 2024, 07:33:58 PMChildhood sleepover at next-door neighbor's house.
That this isn't the answer for almost everyone heavily confuses me. Maybe not next door but within a short-walk distance.
Or if not neighbors, at least some sort of family, relatives, or close friends. I think mine would be my grandparents house, less than 10 miles away.
^^^^
None of my relatives have ever lived near me—closest ones have always been in New York City. (Not counting my parents after I grew up.)
The closest for my current living situation is my coworker's house 3 miles away. We went up to the casino and after we got back to his house, those of us there just talked and talked and eventually, I was just too tired to drive home, so he let me and everyone else stay.
When my parents bought a pop-up camper, we set it up in the driveway and spent the night in it.
And then, similarly to many others, I have spent the night at a next-door neighbors house, most recently not too long ago, actually, since I was dogsitting for them.
And then, there is local hotel I stayed at once on New Year's Eve after a wedding instead of going home.
Quote from: DandyDan on September 01, 2024, 05:49:37 AMThe closest for my current living situation is my coworker's house 3 miles away. We went up to the casino and after we got back to his house, those of us there just talked and talked and eventually, I was just too tired to drive home, so he let me and everyone else stay.
Man you couldn't pay me enough to stay at someone's house three miles from mine outside of an emergency.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on September 01, 2024, 12:12:51 PMQuote from: DandyDan on September 01, 2024, 05:49:37 AMThe closest for my current living situation is my coworker's house 3 miles away. We went up to the casino and after we got back to his house, those of us there just talked and talked and eventually, I was just too tired to drive home, so he let me and everyone else stay.
Man you couldn't pay me enough to stay at someone's house three miles from mine outside of an emergency.
It's not like it was planned that way.
As a kid, about three-quarters of a mile away at my grandmother's house.
As an adult, 17 miles away, back at my childhood home after I got an apartment in the town where I was working.
In recent years, I have spent the night at motels in London and Hazard.