the best laid plans Vs. recreation.gov

As I have shared in a previous post we are planning on some camping adventures with our grandsons! Needless to say we are all very into this and have spent hours on the "net" exploring the possibilities. Should we tent camp? Take our new( much older trailer, which has now been at the R.V. doctors for over 2 weeks)? Should we visit state parks, or National Parks, recreation areas or B.L.M. lands? So many possibilities with so many decisions.

We have decided to to try them all, so we have researched where we want to go, and seen the pictures of the different campsites on line and made a game plan. It all started out so smooth...our first adventure is very close and will include a combination of tent and trailer, this is happening at the end of the month. The second is a tent only site at the end of April at Pinnacles National Monument,that should give us a taste of true camping, the 3rd comes in May with a trip to the Grand Canyon which is very exciting, over memorial day weekend and no trouble to book at all! All of this was done online with Recreation.gov, the National park service reservation web site.

Now it has been a long winter so we have had so much time to dream and plan, all of us researching where to go in June and Yosemite seemed to be a great choice. We got online and looked at hundreds of campsites in several campgrounds ..picked out our favorites and then tried to book. As so many people other than us know, this is not an easy task. Recreation.gov said I had to wait until 7 am on Feb.15th to do this. That morning I woke, showered and opened the website with our desired campsite number and a second choice site just in case, logged in and was told it was 6:58 and I had to wait until 7 to do this. Not only that but a list of helpful suggestions was posted to help with this process. What process?? I have been using this website with out issue for weeks..what could be so hard about this?

Only when you are new to something as complicated as a camping spot in Yosemite can you be so uninformed as to the challenges that await! I entered our spot, the process began...unavailable!! I entered spot number 2..process began, results unavailable..did a 3rd try for any spot...process..unavailable..the park was booked!!! It was now 7:08 and I was informed to come back in March and try again...are they serious???

We are going to Kings Canyon in June..this was the option for a national park in California in June and to tell the truth I am glad to have it!!! I am not trying in March for July..the national park service says this is the highest traffic month of the year for Yosemite so we will wait until fall!

We have also booked for July at the Point Reyes National Seashore, N shared that he wanted to camp like the pioneers did so Grandpa and I found a place that we could pack in. Now this truly shows how in "in today" we have become with our teen age grandsons. I found the picture of the campsite we wanted, Grandpa says it looks great! I said it says 5 for the walk in, "what does that mean?"Grandpa D. says must mean 5 min. book it... so I did.

We shared this with N. who said great, BUT upon further research since... 5 means MILES!!! we are booked, we are going, K. will be 5 by then so we will see what happens. We are doing research on back-packs, again this will mean more stuff!

So we go into the future requiring more stuff........again, only very lightweight this time!