Day 20 – Mariposa

Leo injured his shoulder and elbow yesterday after flipping his bike while riding at our campground in King’s Canyon. He’s ok but we thought we’d take it easy today—he was supposed to post about our otherwise awesome day in King’s Canyon but he’s off the hook until he feels ready.

We saddled up this morning at about 10am and got to the Mariposa KOA campground around 2pm. Rather than brave the crowds at Yosemite on a hot afternoon, we decided to stock up on supplies, chill at the pool, relax and play games in the RV. We’ll set off early tomorrow for a full day of sightseeing.

Since there is no scenery to reveal, I’ll use this post to reveal the inner everyday scenery of our RV. The dimensions are 30ft x 12 ft high x 10ft wide. The width is nice… about as good as you can get without slideouts. Highways are only 12 ft wide so any bigger and an already tight window would disappear.

Dining / gaming table

Kitchen

Queen bed in back

View from bed

Front door (+ screen door)

Dashboard

Kids bed above cab

Fold out couch

Bathroom

Shower

Fridge

Some have asked whether we’d do this again knowing what we now know about RV life and the answer is: depends. I think that for seeing many parks in a short span (16 in 40 days) the RV has been great because you don’t need to unpack at hotel after hotel, plus you can carry way more stuff from home with you. If you like camping like we do, it’s great to be able to enjoy the outdoors and have your hotel room right next to you.

On the other hand, if we were planning on spending a week or more at each park we might think twice. Despite its amenities, the vehicle does feel small, at times, for four people—particularly when two of those four people are growing, increasingly territorial boys. It also sometimes feels uneven; nominally level lots can get as bad as 5º tilt, which happened during our dispersed camping adventure in the Big Meadows campground in Sequoia National forest.

One thing we did not foresee is just how badly the back of the RV jostles when driving. If the route is particularly windy or bumpy you may end up reshelving all your clothes, games, etc., at the end of each day. And cleaning the RV every day is pretty much a must if you want to keep some semblance of order. Also, unlike most hotels, RV parks have pretty bad wi-fi. Since we’ve committed to doing this blog, spotty reception has caused some difficulties. We’ve tried using our cellphones as mobile hotspots with mixed results. Reception is even worse in most of the national parks, so at times we’ve felt pretty isolated.

On that last point, it should be mentioned that the boys have been good sports, but family games and park scenery can only take you so far. The first signs of homesickness are beginning to creep into view, and it is clear that they miss their friends, their dog, their own rooms, and their hometown. As of today we are halfway done with our trip. Now that we’ve learned a thing or two about the logistics of traveling to the National Parks in an RV, our new challenge is to find ways to make each other feel more at home on the road.