We Might Not Be Back: The Beginning

On day one of what may be the craziest trip we’ve taken yet the girls and I set out for the airport at 330am. By some miracle both of our flights were running early and we got to San Francisco about an hour ahead of schedule. We picked up our Chevy Impala and headed to our friends’ house. These are the friends who made the camping portion of this trip possible.
We started off considering a visit to San Francisco and then possibly camping at Yosemite. At some point we considered driving across the country and stopping in places like the Badlands and Mt. Rushmore. Because I didn’t want to risk my van dying or pay the exorbitant fees to return a car to a different state the cross country drive got the axe. Yosemite also got crossed off the list because you can’t reserve campsites in advance and it seemed slightly less little kid friendly. So instead we (maybe just this half of we) decided to still start in San Francisco to take advantage of our friends’ kind offer and then make a loop through the west stopping at as many national parks as we could. At the end we would stay for a few days in San Francisco, so I could balance out all the time in nature. We would do all this over two weeks with an estimated 2200 miles of driving.
Our first day in San Francisco consisted of trying to shop for groceries and supplies and organize a U-Hauls worth of gear and luggage into a standard size car. Again thank goodness for amazing friends, because I don’t know that Gabby and Lottie would’ve really been able to see me through this process. In the end we made it work since thankfully the people in the back of the car didn’t require as much leg room.
After a fantastic dinner and some time spent catching up we headed to bed so we could be up bright and early for our first destination.