It's difficult to get reservations at the Watchman Campground in Zion National Park. You must reserve your site six months in advance, and you're also competing with a lot of people. So in anticipation of our fall break trip this October, I started thinking about these reservations in early March. I narrowed down our dates, and I looked through the campsites to see which ones would be good for us. To my surprise, I realized that beginning in mid-September, Loop B of the campground (which has 63 campsites) would be closed for renovation. That meant that only Loop A would be open for RVs when we planned to be there, and that loop has a mere 27 sites.
As April progressed, I watched as our site choices for our dates of October 12-15th dwindled. You can reserve six months in advance of your Day 1--for us that would be April 12th--so if someone wanted to reserve October 10-15, they could book that reservation on April 10th, two days before I would be able to book our dates. So every day, my list of choices got smaller and smaller. Yesterday, my list was down to five campsites.
I spent a lot of time yesterday looking at those five sites. Besides the reservation websites's photos, I used Google Earth, campsitephotos.com, and I even watched a YouTube video some guy made while driving around the campground in his truck. I ranked the five sites in my head, on my scratch paper next to the computer here, and vowed to get my first choice.
So I logged on this morning to reserve A15. It was gone. And so was A9, A12, and A24. Even my last choice of A2 was booked. I had been defeated. And unexpectedly! I guess when you stop to consider that there might be five other people besides me in the whole wide world who would want those Thursday through Sunday dates in Zion, it's certainly possible. But I didn't believe it was probable. And now I'm disappointed because we might not get there unless I drive myself crazy watching for cancellations now through October. Yep. Looky there. I just checked. Nothing.
The kicker is that I had booked four nights at the Watchman last April but was forced to cancel that reservation in September because Brian had to work over fall break. And to really drive it home, the Universe or fate or God or whatever or whoever is in charge of these things sent us a blood-sucking parasite and said, "You will not go to Zion, Nakais! Or Bryce. Or Capitol Reef. Or even Pittsburgh."
Unless I can come up with another place to go in October, this will be the third long break in a row in which we do not take a long-ish trip in the Airstream. We had a family wedding this spring. Over the summer, we're going to the beach with my parents and my brother's family. Fall was going to be our big trip. Now we'll probably have to settle and go somewhere in Arizona for a weekend. And be hot.
I'm happy we have the Airstream. I really am. I just want to be able to use it the way we dreamed we would, and it's proving to be not as easy as I thought it would be. What's with all the barriers, huh? Poorly-timed commitments that can't be broken, risks of disappointing family, unfavorable weather, and competitive reservation systems sure make this easy-breezy RV lifestyle stressful.
4 comments:
Have you considered Bryce, Arches or Canyonlands?
Yes. Those are farther, and the plan was to visit Bryce and Capitol Reef, too, but I had to let those go because Brian needs to be back. No reservations at those parks.
We just got back from that area (Zion and Bryce)...we stayed at Kodachrome Basin State Park which is only 30ish minutes from Bryce- an easy drive. Kodachrome was absolutely gorgeous and worth staying at by itself (has hiking and trails inside the park).
As for Zion, there's an RV "resort" in Springdale, the town right outside the park. From that resort you can either walk (about 20 minutes) or take the Springdale shuttle to the vistor's center. Shuttles leave the visitors' center every 5 minutes or so. There's another RV resort that's a little nicer but further outside Zion: Zion River Resort...it's a 20 min drive into Springdale but you can again, park and take the shuttle as above.
Also there is a TON of BLM land in Utah available for boondocking, if you are set up for it. People literally pull a couple of miles off the interstate and set up camp! We saw several informal 'campgrounds' like that on our way in and out of Zion.
Good luck!
Nothing like having a perfect stranger put things in perspective to snap you out of your pity party. I need to realize there is always more than one option. There are beautiful spots all over this place, and national parks are ridiculously popular right now. In ten years, most will have forgotten about them for the next ninety years and we'll have all kinds of open spaces to park it. I've also come to the conclusion that the universe is keeping us from Zion until the kids are ready to climb Angels Landing. :)
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