For the last few months I have been spending a little time looking at my Streets & Trips map and kind of planning an itinerary route for our California trip.
Brian and I both are planners, especially when it comes to knowing which route we are taking and the vicinity of which we will be in. So it was time to finally sit down and finalize our California trip. What we thought would take only a day or two to figure out has now taken up most of our days/weeks, spending numerous hours on the computer and the Internet. It’s a good thing we have good solar power and a generator for back-up!!!
As the research began, some of the areas in which we most defiantly want to see are: Joshua Tree NP, Yosemite NP, Kings Canyon NP, Redwood NP and Lassen NP-just to name a few. Our goal is to start at Joshua Tree and end somewhere near Lake Tahoe.
What poses the most challenge for us was, was traveling along the coast of California or staying inland into the National Forest. As we looked at the map and seeing if we stayed anywhere near the coastal line-specially in the southern sector of California-you have huge cities to go through.
When it comes to traveling inside any huge city limits my first response to Brian is: “GET ME THE HELL OUT OF THIS MESS!” And yes, generally I’m yelling at him and he’s not the driver (poor guy)!! So it was decided almost immediately that we would stay clear of all the major cities like San Diego, and Los Angeles and even San Francisco.
One of the things that I do is first look at my Street and Trips map, and while I’m doing that Brian has the atlas map out and studying it. We look at what we want to see, then try to map the best route-without back tracking.
As we do this, I then check for camping areas. THAT is what became our biggest headache of all! I can locate a few campgrounds on my S&T program. Then on go online and start looking at those sites or any other campground on our route. Now mind you Brian and I are not particular fond of private parks, so we gear completely away from them. We mostly like dispersed if we can, or national forest/parks.
As I look online into the National Forest and Parks and their campgrounds, that is where our problem began. Either there is no dispersed areas, or we are too long; most stating nothing longer than 22 feet. But the most confusing of all was we found campgrounds that could accommodate 30 foot motorhomes, but only 20 foot travel trailers. Makes no sense-right? After talking to a Park Ranger; their reasoning is a motorhome turn radius is different than a travel trailer/5th wheel and therefore there are HUGE trees that post a serious obstacle….causing damages both to the trees and travel trailer/5th wheel.
We also asked about sites that would fit us on a first come first serve basis and almost got laughed at. Basically they wished us luck-for there generally is a line-up waiting for spots-no matter what time of the year it is! Another thing that posed a problem was that many of the campgrounds are closed until late May or even way into June and that didn’t work in our travel plans. Our best choice was to go online and make reservations. So we did just that!
We yet ran into another snag-Yosemite was completely booked up for the next 5 months and beyond!! We did manage to finally secure a campground just outside of Yosemite that still allows us access into the National Park. Taking no more chances, we also reserved campsite at Sequoia NP. And booked a third campground in the Sierra National Forest.
Now as we moved on and headed towards Redwood NP, we once again took no chances and booked one week at the north end and one week at the south end.
Now we contacted Lassen NP and by the time we get there-we were told we wouldn’t have any issues getting a spot on a first come-first serve. So no more bookings-for now anyways.
But wait! Now how can a person travel into California and not make a stop at the Golden Gate Bridge? Yes I want to see the Golden Gate and Alcatraz as well. So in our path, we will make a two night pit stop at a county park about 70 miles away. And just take the truck near the Golden Gate. Did you know that you can actually walk across the GG? Yep, it’s about a 1.3 mile one way walk and we plan on doing just that! I found a nice easy route that will take us from where we will leave our little home behind, cross over the bridge and back out again.
Some of the areas that we plan on being at has had an abundance of bear activity-so maybe if I’m lucky I might finally get to see one-only from afar distant-mind you!!!
