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Many of my friends from our small church know that my family enjoys camping. Some of them got this idea last year that I would be great at organizing a small group camping trip. I have never organized a group trip before, but I am always up for challenges. I organized the first trip and we spent 3 nights at Lassen National Park in California. The weather was supposed to be in the 70's during the day and 40's during the night. There was snow banks on the road during the drive and plenty of areas for the kids to go snow sliding in the warm weather.
One of the guys that came with had never camped in his life. He made a funny comment on purpose to make us all laugh. He said "Chinese people stay in hotels and that is as close to camping as we get." He really did not want to go camping, but his wife did. He even helped plan the trip. He never had set up a tent in his life. I set up the tent for his family of 7 and let him use a lot of our equipment. The first night it got down to 26 degrees! The following night, another family offered him several more sleeping bags to keep them warm.
Here is how I made plans for this trip to Kings Canyon National Park:
"We are going to Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Park from From June 7-Monday June 10. It's about a 5 hour drive from the Bay Area. The group campsites are first come first serve. I will arrive early enough to reserve a group site @$40 a night. Bring your own food and we can pot luck at night if you like. There is a lot do at this park and we can figure all that out when we arrive. Let me know if you are interested."
The trip I planned this year is for the second week the second week of June and I decided on Kings Canyon, a mere 5 hour drive. Did not seem too far for my family since that is usually how far we travel on our first day despite the fact that we never seem to leave before noon.
Shortly after making the announcement via email where we were going, I got a lot of responses that made me chuckle.
"Why so far away?" "Can we drive some place north of the Golden Gate Bridge?", "Let's leave on Thursday and come back Sunday."
There were a lot more comments than this. A close friend with a rather strong personality chimed in and said Kings Canyon is 10 time more beautiful than some of the other suggestions and that we need to stick with our plan. He also told me make the plans and let chips fall where they fall. I knew that he was on to something. Most of the people asking for the special requests and complaining about this or that were probably never going to come on the camping trio.
This short invitation worked and did not stress me out. All I did was go online to Reserve America and reserve 3 camping sites for 4 families. I included a lot of links for people to see all they need to know about Kings Canyon.
I know there are a lot people here that love to plan big events. My wife did not want the stress of planning meals and activities. Ditto for me. Last year I wrote the same group camping script and 16 people joined us at Lassen National Park. We should get about the same amount this year.
We are all excited about this trip and I look forward to posting photos.
One of the guys that came with had never camped in his life. He made a funny comment on purpose to make us all laugh. He said "Chinese people stay in hotels and that is as close to camping as we get." He really did not want to go camping, but his wife did. He even helped plan the trip. He never had set up a tent in his life. I set up the tent for his family of 7 and let him use a lot of our equipment. The first night it got down to 26 degrees! The following night, another family offered him several more sleeping bags to keep them warm.
Here is how I made plans for this trip to Kings Canyon National Park:
"We are going to Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Park from From June 7-Monday June 10. It's about a 5 hour drive from the Bay Area. The group campsites are first come first serve. I will arrive early enough to reserve a group site @$40 a night. Bring your own food and we can pot luck at night if you like. There is a lot do at this park and we can figure all that out when we arrive. Let me know if you are interested."
The trip I planned this year is for the second week the second week of June and I decided on Kings Canyon, a mere 5 hour drive. Did not seem too far for my family since that is usually how far we travel on our first day despite the fact that we never seem to leave before noon.
Shortly after making the announcement via email where we were going, I got a lot of responses that made me chuckle.
"Why so far away?" "Can we drive some place north of the Golden Gate Bridge?", "Let's leave on Thursday and come back Sunday."
There were a lot more comments than this. A close friend with a rather strong personality chimed in and said Kings Canyon is 10 time more beautiful than some of the other suggestions and that we need to stick with our plan. He also told me make the plans and let chips fall where they fall. I knew that he was on to something. Most of the people asking for the special requests and complaining about this or that were probably never going to come on the camping trio.
This short invitation worked and did not stress me out. All I did was go online to Reserve America and reserve 3 camping sites for 4 families. I included a lot of links for people to see all they need to know about Kings Canyon.
I know there are a lot people here that love to plan big events. My wife did not want the stress of planning meals and activities. Ditto for me. Last year I wrote the same group camping script and 16 people joined us at Lassen National Park. We should get about the same amount this year.
We are all excited about this trip and I look forward to posting photos.
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. Spot picking is always dependent on the car accessibility of the crowd going. A large contingent of outer borough R.S.V.P.ers means at least 2/3s of us drive/have car access and a 3-4 hour trip is fine; native NYCers translates to less know how to drive and requires a closer locale.
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