We’ve only lived in California now for almost 10 years, and you know when you live near something, you typically never go, because it’s there..close..and you’ll go someday. You have a lot of time to go.
Yeah, that’s like Yosemite. People come from all across the world, and plan their trips for at least a YEAR in advance – snapping up campsites in minutes for next year.. and it’s only 3 1/2-4 hours away from us and we’ve never been.
Well, we put it down on our “To-Do” list for this summer. After seeing that there were no campsites left for the entire summer, we had decided that WHEN we go, whenever that would be, that we would be camping in the walk-in area. They reserve about 50% of a certain campsite, kind of far away from the actual valley, that are first come first serve tent only sites. They open at 10am and the line has already formed by 8am, meaning if you don’t get there by 8, you most likely won’t get a site. That didn’t sound very fun to risk it, even though it’s only $5 a night.
One Thursday morning, we decided to check the website again to see if anything had opened up to reserve, since people change and cancel their reservations often. What was this? In the entire Yosemite Valley, ONE tent or RV site was available. And it was in a close campground! And it was bordered by open space – nobody behind it (except bears).
Here is how the conversation went between Shelley and I:
HURRY! Click RESERVE! And it’s only $14! Hurry! What? The computer is frozen? Quick! Look it up on your phone! Get the iPad turned on! You have to go to work? BE LATE! Just get a device open! I AM rebooting the computer right now! I know! I don’t remember the website! Oh, my phone is slow! What? The iPad can’t get on the internet?? Oh yeah, that’s because I blocked it so the kids wouldn’t be on it. Oh, shoot.. I can’t unblock it until the computer reboots! Oh, I bet the campsite is already taken.
…………. 5 minutes later the computer is back up.
HURRY! Click RESERVE! It’s still there!
<<<<<< CLICK >>>>>>>>> “Thank you for your reservation….”
We got it! Hmmm.. I guess we’re going to Yosemite tomorrow.
So in a rush, we had to find where the tent was, and plan our trip.
It was awesome.
Why did we wait so long to go?
We borrowed a bike rack to try out and took our bikes, saving a ton of money from having to rent bikes there.
It’s a beautiful place and the pics don’t really do it justice. It’s so very strange how this HUGE valley of granite is just sitting there in the middle of nothing all around it. It was all created by glaciers and the actual camping areas are in the middle of the valley. We didn’t really get a good idea of the overall place until we saw a model of the whole area. Then it made more sense.
We biked, hiked, star gazed, and had a great time. We heard more non-English conversations than we did English. TONS of visitors from Europe. I guess they don’t have forests over there or something.
Jacob and Hannah said they wanted to go again, under one condition. That we did it as a whole family – with Meghan and Marissa. We really missed having them with us!!! Next time we would stay longer and go earlier in the year. All the waterfalls were either dry or just a trickle.
Moral of the story.. if you live close to something, and you say you will go there someday, do it sooner than later!
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