Family after hike up to Glacier PointThis was probably to be our last long trek across the U.S. together as a family (although I think I have said that every year for the past 3 years). The boys are getting older and really should get some work experience over the summers. We also foolishly thought that they wouldn’t want to travel with us anymore, but ironically they are the ones that inevitably come up with the question each spring, “Where’re we headed this summer?” So we decided to do it one more time. Since Andrew was going to be leaving us this fall for his first year at college, we gave him the choice. Without hesitation, he chose Yosemite National Park, a place that we had brought him to when he was just 7 years old. Both Andrew and Tommy, and of course Herb, are avid photographers and the thought of being in Ansel Adam territory was very appealing to all of them, not to mention the fabulous hiking and river opportunities.

So now it was my job to figure out how to get a campsite in this extremely popular park. On March 15 at 10:00 am EST, I and thousands of other hopeful campers frantically hit the reservation website and desperately raced to beat fellow campers with slower keyboard skills for the highly coveted sites. Within 5 minutes all the campsites were taken, but I was the proud owner of one of them! I think it helped that our RV was just under 27 feet because that seemed to be the cutoff for a large number of sites.

This trip was to be a little different for us in that it we were going to actually anchor in one place for an entire week, which was luxurious compared to our usual frantic 1 or 2 night stops. It really was to be a vacation in Yosemite, with a week to fill with good stuff on either end. Fortunately, we did manage to find some really good stuff that we had never seen before. Even with 7 trips back and forth across the U.S., the good news is that there are still plenty of new places to see.

Road Trip Highlights and Lowlights

• Hiking through the “goblins” at Goblin Valley State Park in Utah
• Waterskiing/Wakeboarding along the turquoise waters of Lake Mead in Nevada
• Being the only campers in the 200+ sites of Stovepipe Wells Campground in Death Valley
• Losing our brakes coming out of Death Valley and limping 28 miles into Lone Pine without brakes
• Hiking the cable route up the back of Half Dome in Yosemite
• Swimming and floating on tubes in the Merced River while gazing up at El Capitan in Yosemite
• Hanging in the meadow in the evenings and watching the sunset over Half Dome
• Visiting old friends in Park City, Utah, and mountain biking the Lost Prospector trail with them