Thanks for following along! I hope you and your son are able to coordinate and have a wonderful trip this fall!
That sounds amazing! We would love to do something like that some day too.
Haha I totally get this feeling! That campsite is gorgeous and so great to know that you had luck with reservations with cancellations. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but we were at Crystal Cove during 4th of July week so the competition might have been extra fierce (we were heading home one July 3rd so I hadn’t really thought about it, but I’m guessing people were trying to book holiday beach trips).
I love that your most last-minute reservation ended up being the best part of your trip. It’s a great reminder to me, as an uber-planner, to relax a bit. Ironically, my two favorite stops on this trip were also not in my original plans - kayaking in La Jolla and the San Juan Capistrano Mission.
Thanks so much! I may take you up on that. Those parks sound absolutely amazing - how awesome that your family got to experience that. I hope we can do a couple of west coast national parks-focused trips (I’m thinking Northern California and Utah for sure; if we can make it back to the Oregon coast and Washington, it would be awesome). Happy planning of your next trip!
(As an aside, we went to a national historic site within a couple of hours from home this week. We bumped into a family that was on their 282nd NPS unit! They were on a long road trip between the Midwest and Maine, hitting 30 sites along the way. My boys were impressed by all of their junior ranger badges. So now they have big dreams! 
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