Man... memories!
HA! Good thing I don't have a family.
The only way I could afford to get my instrument rating several years back was to sleep in the back of my car. It was a wagon, so I folded down the seats, and stretched my blanket from the rear corner diagonally across the seats. It worked O.K. I kept clothes in one corner, food and gas stove in another, and books on the front seat. A little alarm clock, listened to the radio getting dressed, heck, I didn't even have to get out my house to commute to the airport or work! Great views of thunderstorms, nice rain noises... it was a lot of fun. Not conducive for bringing home girls. I tried it once. Emphasis on the word "once" and "tried."
However, in summertime, beware of the "bake-awake".
Picture yourself: The sun rises brilliantly in the east, and the car temp slowly goes up. Thermo-dynamics at work! You're tired, as you worked nights and trained all day, and you dig your head underneath the pillow where it was cooler and continue to sleep. Well, the temperature only goes up and up and up, but you still sleep alright, and you tell yourself, "I'll keep sleeping until it gets warm." However, "warm" doesn't come gradually...All is fine until the car hits a magical critical temperature then: The brain goes into full emergency procedure and wakes up the body, all senses screaming: YOU ARE BEING COOKED! BAM! Up you jump, grappling for the door, your mind is half-awake being dragged along by your body. Pop the door and out into the cool morning air you crawl, disoriented and feeling pretty rotten because that's a sh!tty way to come out of a nice well deserved sleep. So there you are, stumbling around in the middle of a busy parking lot in your underwear muttering to yourself, surrounded by commuters staring at you like jungle-boy-who-has-just-fallen-out-of-the-forest. The bake-awake has got you again!
That was a of fun.
I'll be in a normal crashpad next time.
