LONG STORY SHORT By Jason Clark It took many road trips for me to learn that an ultra-efficient itinerary does not necessarily produce the best vacation. It's a difficult mentality to overcome—some places take a lot of effort or money (or both) to get to, so why shouldn't we get the most out of our time? The answer is energy. An ultra-efficient itinerary is often ultra-draining, and spending a week hopping from place to place to "get the most out of your time" is a great way to ensure you have zero energy left for the remainder of the trip. Given how much we put into planning The Big Trip, I wanted to ensure we wouldn't be burnt out a week, a month, or even a year into it. That's how we ended up spending a full week at an unremarkable campground an hour east of San Francisco... sort of. The truth is, I expected us to be doing more during our time in the Bay Area. We had three main destinations in mind: San Francisco, Oakland/East Bay, and Point Reyes National Seashore. So, while planning our itinerary for that week, I expected us to have a campsite near each destination, with driving days between each stay.
It didn't work out that way. As it turns out, there isn't a lot of national forest or state park land around the Bay Area. As a result, there aren't many campgrounds that can host a trailer or RV, and the few RV parks that do exist cost more per night than a hotel room. So instead of staying at three campgrounds around the Bay Area, we ended up at one: Brannan Island State Recreation Area, about an hour and two toll bridges away from downtown San Francisco. We had to do more daily driving, but the time we saved by staying in one spot gave us the opportunity to see more of the Bay Area—if we wanted to, that is. We've been to the Bay Area many times before. We've done most of the touristy things available: We've crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, taken the ferry to Alcatraz, and eaten clam chowder bread bowls at the Boudin factory. During our most recent visit, I just wanted to see a San Francisco Giants game and an Oakland A's game, and Kristine wanted to eat chocolate at Ghirardelli Square. We did see a Giants game (a two-hour pitcher's duel at Oracle Park), and we ate all the chocolate, but I decided to pass on the A's game after it became clear that the owner is a turd who plans to move the team to Las Vegas and screw over all the Oakland fans in the process. That left us with fewer driving days and fewer items on our itinerary. What did we do with the extra time? Nothing. Nothing at all. Well, almost nothing. At some point, we realized we needed equipment from Camping World (45 minutes away) to help fill our freshwater tank. And then we had to go back to Camping World to buy a new anode rod for our hot water heater. And then we had to make a couple trips to the dump station to make room in our gray water tank. And then we had to research and purchase health insurance. Needless to say, all our extra time in the Bay Area helped immensely. Despite our unexpected errands, we also had a chance to relax and catch up on building our website (somewhat—as of this writing, we're still more than a week behind). We were able to take it easy and make sure we were well-rested for the week ahead—which ended up being a lot more exciting than we expected.
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