Reservations

I don't know just what it is, but the older I get, the more I want to have reservations and the harder they are to get. I'm talking, of course, about camping and vacations.

Back in 1985, when it was just me, three kids, a station wagon and a tent, I set off across country to go camping in Yellowstone without any reservations. There was never a problem, although everybody I talked to about the trip beforehand looked at me rather strangely when I told them of my plans - or my lack thereof.

It was a memorable trip. Our first night was at a campground in the Badlands. Nobody checked the weather reports, so we were completely surprised when a late night thunderstorm roared in and tried to destroy our tent. It was one of the then-newer dome tents with bamboo-bungee tent poles, the kind that fold back into a single unit when removed. The winds were trying to flatten the tent with us in it and I was afraid for the integrity of the flimsey poles. We all stood inside the tent with our backs to the wind trying to be the poles, keeping the real ones from snapping. When the storm finally left, we piled into the station wagon to sleep as best we could given the cramped and lumpy accommodations and our adrenaline hangovers.

Our second night was in a motel with dryers. We gave them good use. After recovering, we were ready for tents again.

The third night we hit Yellowstone, and actually found plenty of open spaces. That weather report we hadn't checked also would have told us about the 8" of snow that fell just before we got there and chased half the people out who would have filled the park up. By the time we arrived, there were dribs and drabs of snow left, and plenty of choices. The site we picked was apparently a favorite evening foraging ground for the free-roaming bison. (This was back before wolf reintroduction, which cramped that style.) When I poked my head out of the tent first thing in the morning, I decided I didn't really need to go use the restroom quite as urgently as I'd thought I did, not with one grazing ten feet from our door. I could wait.

This was also the trip where we found out Paul got sick whenever he smelled the sulfur that permeated most of the park. (And to think how we'd secretly laughed when my mom handed me the coffee can with a plastic bag liner, "because you never know.")

But since that trip, I've learned to be wary of traveling without reservations, and right now that's starting to drive me batty. We've got most of them set up OK, but it's the Thurs-Fri-Sat of July 1-2-3 that's causing problems. We're needing to be on the far (west) side of Rocky Mountain National Park, somewhere near the Crystal River, before heading up to Alpine, Wyoming. That's the river where Sylvia's ashes are to be scattered, and where we take a side trip to Montrose to visit Steve's mom's grave, so that general area is a must. We found one perfect-sounding site, but they're full. Another one close will take the RV but not the tent - big help! Lots of them are tent-only, and after 3 nights at RMNP we will need electricity for recharging all our batteries. So we're thinking maybe just Thursday there and Fri-Sat up at Flaming Gorge. A phone call assured me that high country campgrounds will be more likely to have spaces open than lake-level ones around the gorge, and might be cheaper as well. But there's still a lot of work to do. And that still doesn't solve the western Colorado needs.

And in spite of my hopes for help with planning and reservations before this trip, it seems to be me who's the one who has to do the work to make them.