Happy HikersThis trip was pretty much built around my extreme good fortune in being able to reserve one of the highly-coveted campsites in Yosemite Valley in August. On March 15 at 10:00 am EST, I dutifully turned on several computers and sat poised to hit enter when the reservation site opened the gates for the July 15 through August 14 camping window. Herb was off relaxing in Florida, so this very stressful task was left in my hopefully capable hands.

10:00 am and I started clicking madly on sites that said available, only to find that as I progressed through the reservation process someone was actually ahead of me. I have since learned to position myself several steps further in the process before 10:00 arrives. Herb called around 10:05 and I told him that I had blown it. Everything was gone.

After we hung up, I happened to notice a one-night availability for 8/14 in North Pines. Then it hit me. Although the booking window was for 7/15 through 8/14, that meant start date. I quickly selected this campsite starting on 8/14 for 7 days. I immediately called Herb back to tell him of the good news.

We were very lucky to get a whole week reserved, but still it wasn’t perfect. The reservation went from a Thursday to a Thursday, which made it difficult for the boys to take vacation that would allow them to spend a whole week in Yosemite. So when April 15th came along and the 8/15 – 9/14 window became open for reservations, we both got on computers, selected the campsite we already had, and entered 8/21 for 3 nights, which allowed us to span two weekends. Success!! Now we would have 9 days with the boys in Yosemite, and Andrew’s girlfriend’s and her family would be able to join us for 5 of them.

Once everyone left, Herb and I would continue east to explore the Eastern Sierra: Bishop, Mammoth Lakes, Mono Lake, Travertine Springs, and South Lake Tahoe.

Although the places we visited and the time spent together were absolutely awesome, we had so many problems with our aging Lazy Daze that, dare I say, the thought of giving up motorhoming crossed our minds, or maybe at least purchasing a newer one that didn’t require so much maintenance. Far too often, while looking at Herb’s feet sticking out from under the RV, I heard him lament, “I’m getting too old for this.” Was this perhaps the final journey for Lolo’s Extreme?

No big decisions should be made during the height of battle, so we decided to let this trip age awhile and decide at a later point the future of our method of travel.