Monday, May 11, 2015

What do you mean we need reservations?

Retirement!  The start of our sunset years and finally, we can forget about being practical and be spontaneous.  Right?  Wrong.  Bob's been retired for a week and in a few days we are leaving on our first post-retirement trip.  I always thought once we were retired and didn't have the constraints of a 5 day work-week or a long weekend we would be able to wake up one morning and say "Honey, let's pack the car and head to Yosemite!"  http://www.nps.gov/yose/index.htm

Well, so much for my retirement insight because it turns out that going to Yosemite requires a lot of planning, especially because the trip has now evolved into a much larger road trip.  As long as we are driving down we may as well take a scenic route.  And the other kink in the spontaneity is that Bob wants to camp for a good deal of the trip.  Camping requires reservations.  Who knew?  Not me because I don't really care for camping and haven't gone for many years. 

Bob loves camping, and he did a lot of it when he was a boy, a teen, a young man, and right up until he married me!  As a youngster, Bob spent his summers canoeing across the lakes of southern Ontario, Canada as part of a summer camp excursion lasting a couple months at a time.  They portaged the canoes between lakes and rivers and carried all their provisions in wanagans using tump lines.  I shouldn't complain about car and tent camping at all!
Catch of the day!


Wanagan - 1950s cooler!
A young Bob in the woods.
 











I did go camping for a few years because I felt the "kids" needed to be exposed to the wilderness and I had confidence that Bob would teach them well.  He did and they love camping so all of them go every summer.




Mike enjoying a beer!


Amy enjoying camping!
Shane popping the wine!
But, I'm a good sport (most of the time) and realize that Bob deserves to enjoy his first post-retirement trip the way he wants to.  So camping we will go, for part of the trip.  It will save some money, or so one would think.  Bob decided we needed a bigger tent; our son-in-law suggested cots; and then there's the odd thing or two like bear bells and whistles.  It all adds up so I'm not sure there's much cost savings but Bob is excited.

The state and national parks require reservations for camping in advance . . . way in advance!  The national parks open their reservation system 5 months in advance and often sell out within minutes.  http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/camping.htmThe first three campgrounds we tried at Yosemite were already sold out when we booked.   We will be camping along the OR  and CA coasts and those spots reserve as far as out as nine months. http://www.reserveamerica.com/

Although I'm grumbling about having to make reservations to camp I will say there are some advantages to the systems.  First, the websites provide a lot of information about the campground facilities including maps of the campgrounds and we were able to choose the sites we wanted to reserve (near the bathrooms of course!)  The other day we got reminder notices about our reservations and were able to print out our vehicle tags and advance registrations. 

As mentioned our trip to Yosemite has morphed into a scenic road trip . . . we'll be traveling down the OR coast, entering CA at the Redwoods, exploring Napa Valley and the SF Bay area, and then crossing the state to visit Yosemite.  After several days in Yosemite we will drive north to South Lake Tahoe, over Donner Pass to Mt. Shasta, up to Crater Lake National Park, and Bend, OR before returning home.  The entire trip is nearly a month long and I think there is only one night without reservations.   Not all of it is camping; we also will be staying in a couple motels, have rented a houseboat for the Bay area, http://www.vrbo.com/  staying in the national park lodge at Crater Lake http://www.nps.gov/crla/planyourvisit/lodging.htmand are using a timeshare week for Lake Tahoe.  http://www.rci.com/

Come along on our journey!  It won't be spontaneous but we'll enjoy the ride!



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Thanks for following along on our journey through retirement, travels and this next phase of our lives! We appreciate your support.