Hopefully we can book a site early enough so that we get a good group campsite. With that mind its time to get the ball rolling on the date and venue suggestions.
Last time we had camped on the second weekend of June. If we do it on a similiar dateline this year that means the weekend of June 10.
Also looking out for venue suggestions for good campsites. Typically our requirements are within 200 miles, water-body nearby (sea,lake, stream), good restrooms and showers, picnic bench on site, tap on site, a flat play area for everyone.
Hopefully a few of us can camp 2 nights (Fri night and Sat night) this time. Which means leaving on Friday evening from Bay Area. Others with a time restriction can join for the usual camping schedule of arriving by Sat noon.
It will also be nice to try out a group camping site this time instead of booking several individual campsites. It will also be nice to travel SOUTH this time since for the past 3 years we have been travelling North for Camping.
So does June 10th have the least number of objections? Also post Venue recommendations.
Here is one venue “Pinecrest Lake”. Unfortunately its not South but on a positive note its not North also. Its to the East. :-). About 120-150 miles away.
Another venue (Also to the east) is Shaver Lake
Its about 189 miles to the east. Would take 4 hrs to reach though.
Pictures look nice though. You can search on the net for more beautiful images of “Shaver Lake”.
One other attractive location which is closeby is Big Sur.
The 2 Group sites are booked for June 10 weekend but they offer “Site specific reservations” which means that we can choose a series of consecutive sites for camping. Many individual sites are still available.
Big Sur offers many camp locations and being closer means less time travelling and more time having fun….
Camping sites information:
http://www.bigsurcalifornia.org/camping.html
Turlock Lake, CA – About 125 miles from south bay
http://www.reserveamerica.com/jsp/commonpage.jsp?goto=/usa/ca/turl/newindex.html
Open all year and featuring camping, picnicking, fishing, swimming, boating, water skiing, and clean country air,
Big Sur usually fills up pretty fast. If we get a group site for June 17 (since 10 not available) then we should book it.
Jayesh, The group site in the Big Sur State Park has a big problem. It is not drive-in campsites and the cars are to be parked 250 yards away on the street (as per the description on the reservation website). We can check out the group sites in the non state park campgrounds. The link is given earlier by Nilesh.
I think there is one campsite in Big Sur (or somewhere near by) where in you can camp on the beach and also take the car on the beach…
Looks like we are soon running out of options for Big Sur. I checked Pfeiffer State Park and they dont have enought available sites for June 9/10 or June 16/17.
I checked Big Sur Campground and Cabins and they have a limit on the group size (15 only). Since we will be surely 40+ they cannot accomodate us.
Dimple did some research on other sites in big sur and found that Andrew Molera, Bottchers Gap, Kirk Creek, Nacimiento, Plaskett, Ponderosa have “first come first served” camping. Some of the other ones are resort like with expenses of 28-55$ / for 2 people per night.
The only other place left to check is Limeklin state park.
Otherwise we need to hunt for other venues now.
Called reserve america Limekiln SP is full for June 2/3, 9/10, 16/17.
June 2/3 is fine also. We are in for fri+sat camping.
May end (May 27-29) is a long weekend and Camping the next weekend will mean too much fun too soon…
Lets spread the fun over few weekends….
My suggestions is:
Camping on June 2nd/3rd week where ever we can get reservations as it will get warmer after this record year of rains…
We are in for 2 nights of Camping…
Any thing after 9th June . We can camp two nights if close by
June 2/3 is fine with us …we are in for two nights camping.
June 2/3 is fine. Prefer one night
We are in- Sat night
We are in any date is fine. Prefere Fri-Sat
June 2/3 is fine.
We are in for 2 nights and June 2nd / 3rd is fine with us.
Would prefer it in the 2nd or 3rd weekend of June. Or another thought would be if KV folks don’t have any plans for the may long weekend, we can do it in the may long weekend instead of June 2/3 …
I skipped the Name field last time. As mentioned earlier June 2/3 is fine with us. We are fine with 2 nights.
I guess lets stick with June 9/10/11 date and keep June 16/17/18 as backup date to search for campsites. Lets keep looking for availability at state parks and at private campgrounds. (Big Sur is out now).
We can use some feedback on pinecrest lake and turlock lake. So if you find any positive/negative things about those 2 post them here.
Lets try to book by weekend or early next week.
Here are some sites to aid in research:
1) http://www.gocampingamerica.com
2) http://www.campingfriend.com
3) http://parks.ca.gov
4) http://www.wildernet.com/
Did not consult high command before relpying…
No on June 2/3 Anytime after is fine…
How about San Luis Reservoir SRA .
Some of the KV folks have been to San Luis in 2000. We camped here last year. ( Photos )
Approx. 95 miles from bay area, Very good water, day use area has nice picnic benches with gazebo, campsite has storage cabinets for our huge food supplies :-).
There Group site is open with very few trees but individual sites are good. 5min drive from individual site to water front.
Turlock Lake and Don Pedro Lake both to the east of Modesto and about 2 hours 15 min away from here look promising.
If you come to know of any positive/negative things about the above two please let me know.
Don Pedro’s website is a must-see just to look at how organized it is. You can view picture of individual sites and you can search by what kind of site you want (lake view, full/partial shade, etc). Very impressive.
Turlock Lake has a river as well as lake. Nice pictures on the web. Here is one example.
Pinecrest Lake is 3 hours 10 min from here and hence I am thinking about dropping it.
Will not be able to make it on June 9/10/11 .
Anything after is fine..
We can make it for 2 nights on any of the week-ends
I read 3 reviews of Turlock lake where they said something about bees.
Don Pedro has 19$/night for a site. Don Pedro Lake has a minimum reservation of 2 nights for a weekend. (19*2 + 6$ reservation).It works out to be 44$ per site for 2 nights (which includes 2 cars). A site can have 8 people. So if we camp at Don Pedro everyone will be paying for 2 night irrespective of whether they actually camp for 2 nights.
Right now Don Pedro seems to be the leading contender.
we r in for 2 nights on any of the weekends
sanket and me will be coming.
Urmi and I would love to come work, but we will be in Philly that weekend attending Urmi’s sister’s graduation. Any chance we can move the camping to the weekend before.. say June 9.
WhooHooo… We finally booked the sites. 🙂
9 sites in all. Following site numbers in Fleming meadows campground have been booked.
Sites: 11,15,16,82,83,84,85,86,88
Confirmation number: 056395
The latest tally of families attending is given below. Please note that if you have not specified number of nights, it has been taken by default to be 1 night.
Potential 2 nights
——–
1) Prashant-Dimple-Komal
2) Gosar Pariwar
3) Nilesh-Vandana
4) Sejal-Jatin
5) Vijay-Kalpana
6) Manish – Neelam (tentative for 2 nights)
7) Kalpesh-Hemal
8) Jaideep-Kalpa
9) Sanjay2-Ameeta
10)Sanjay1-Parul-Ajay-Amita
11)Sanket-Megha
Potential 1 night
—————-
1) Jayesh-Bhavini
2) Deep-Rashmi
3) Samir-Amisha
4) Rupesh-Smita
5) Amit-Sneha
Count us in for one night. -Leena & Rohit
Deepa and I will be coming.
We are in but not sure of 1/2 nites
Sneha
We are in for 1 night ,any date is okay.