A Whirlwind Tour of San Francisco (National Parks Trip #3)

Jump aboard for a little bit of time and space travel from our New England adventures of 2023 back to 2017 and the National Parks of the West Coast.  This post marks a return to the series documenting our West Coast National Parks trip in the summer of 2017.  Alan and I, along with our 18 year old daughter, Kyra, logged a total of 8,513 memorable miles of adventure over the course of five and a half weeks during the months of July and August.  Although we had a brand new Outdoors RV travel trailer at home, we had decided to take our older Jayco on this trip because it had bunk space for Kyra.  That would preclude having to make up the bed in the ORV every night we were on the road.  Plus, with our son, Ryan, having aged out of traveling with us, his empty bunk provided a bit more space for Kyra’s clothes and gear on this extended trip.  Truth be told, this mama’s heart would have been much happier if it had been Ryan in that bunk instead of extra camping paraphernalia.  I absolutely loved traveling with our kids, and I still miss having them along.

The last time I posted about our third cross-country National Parks trip, the three of us had just finished up a three-night stay at Yosemite National Park.  From there, it was a quick (really quick!) one-day tour of San Francisco and Point Reyes National Seashore, then on to Redwood National and State Park in northern California.  Let’s pick up the story on the morning we left the Hodgdon Meadow Campground in Yosemite and headed for Lake Solano County Park in Winters, California.  This would be Day #17 in the five and a half week trip. 

Another Favorite Place - RVParkReviews.com!

Rather than just provide a complete list of my favorite websites under “Check out my favorite places!,” I decided to add them one at a time and let you know exactly why I like them.  That way, you’ll be able to determine whether or not the site might be of interest to you.  Besides, I believe that these sites do such an awesome job of providing information and/or entertainment that it really is a pleasure to bring them to your attention!

RVParkReviews.com has become an invaluable resource for me whether I’m in trip planning mode or we’re traveling without reservations and simply need to find a place to spend the night.  I’ve been known to spend hours digging up info on a campground that we may need for even just a night or two.  I’ll bet you’re wondering why.  Alan wonders why sometimes, too.  But, truthfully, his idea of a perfect campsite and mine are pretty similar.  We enjoy the larger size and more natural surroundings of campgrounds found in State and National Parks.  We’ll both gladly forego hookups for “a room with a view” and, of course, we both want someplace safe and quiet to lay down our heads at night.  Although we do stay in privately owned RV parks when the need arises, we don’t generally search them out or require any of the usual resort amenities when we’re staying at one.  Our perfect campsite would be on public lands - on a lakeshore or riverfront, deep in the woods or at the edge of a meadow with a view of the mountains.  Because I feel so strongly about the sites we choose, I’m willing to devote time and effort to online research trying to match our preferences to campgrounds in the area in which we’ll be traveling.  That’s where RVParkReviews.com comes in.  Photos included in this post are all from campgrounds I found with the help of this extremely useful web site!