we did few weekend/Day trips in summer this year. we started weekend family camping in 2nd week of June. First one is Lassen Volcanic NP.
Lassen volcanic Manzanita Lake Camping:
It was supposed to be 2 night trip, we are supposed to be in the park before sunset. We left home around 2 on Friday in 2nd week of June, We were in traffic for more than 3 hours on 880 north and 580 W. It took more than 3 hours to get to I5 from our home. Generally it will an hour drive more or less. Till Tracy, traffic was moving not more than 20 miles at most, sometimes it is like 5 mph and more of the times it is like bumper to bumper traffic. At tracy we thought we can take break and rejoin the traffic. 
After rejoining the traffic was almost same but it was moving at slow pace may around 20 not sure. we never really stopped. Once we were on I5, it was little better relatively. Till Sacramento, i keep on seeing the same cars, sort of race to reach destination. We crossed Sacramento just before sunset, Then i decided instead of going directly to campsite, i wanted to stop at Red Bluff or Redding for night stay. We were driving based on day light, from one of my previous road trips i kind of strongly following not to drive after full dark. When we were 15 or 20 miles away from Red Bluff, Arshiya wanted a break, we stopped for a awhile on roadside to stretch our bodies a bit. we left may be 10-15 mins of day light. we reserved a hotel room in Red Bluff and we barely reached before it becomes full dark. 
We prepared food for late lunch, instead we had burgers for late lunch at tracy when we took for first break. Luckily, we need not to go out for dinner, we were so tired when were in hotel room. we just wanted to sleep.
Next morning we got up by late i think around 8 i guess. it was almost 11 when were in car and about drive to park. It was an hour and 10 mins drive to campground. when enquired about park conditions at the park entrance, i was bit surprised to know Park roads are not open fully. South gate is open till Sulphur works and west/north gate is open till devastated area only. More than 3/4 of park is still covered with snow. 
After check-in to the park, we straight went to campsite, pitched a tent. it was our first visit to manzanita lake campground. instantly we liked the place. we did camping at sequoia, Yosemite few times. it was bit similar landscape with very less crowded, especially, in jun 2nd week very less crowd. if anyone want to enjoy nature with very pleasant and peaceful environment i suggest to visit Lassen Volcanic in shoulder periods of season. we went to Devastated area for a hike after small rest, it was 0.5 mile loop in sort of little cold breeze, we needed light jackets. when we stopped at parking lot, another surprise for us, specifically to Arshiya, there was snow every where and in some places snow piled up a lot on either side of the road. Unfortunately we did not prepared for any snow activities, as we were not aware of snow existing. i was kind of hoping i can show snow to Arshiya on peak of mountains. she played in snow for a quick, her dress got wet. when she got little shivering, Lakshmi got Arshiya out of snow. When Arshiya was playing, i went for a small walk on road alone. When i returned Arshiya and Lakshmi was at car.
Then we went to campground, first thing we did was collect wood for campfire. We have no specific plans for this trip, except get away from home for a night or two. we started campfire when enough day light is left. it was Lakshmi’s first experience to taste Indian homemade dehydrated curries. She did not expected the curries to taste that good and Arshiya’s favorite camp food is any dal with green leaves with chips. I was bit tense till the evening how to take care of camp food for Arshiya, especially. One of the agenda of this trip was to get some level of understanding on cooking indian vegetarian food while doing doing outdoor with family. 
While preparing dinner, to our next surprise, it started snowing very very thin flakes. we finished our dinner fast and all three sat around the campfire pit. within 2 hours snow fall picked up the pace. then we sort of said done for the day and wanted to go inside the tent. when we go to sleep early (i could not remember when i was the last time i slept before 10PM). we slept good in our cosy sleeping bag/blankets with heavy cushion on top of sleeping pads.
Lakshmi was the first one we got up and went outside the tent. She asked to Arshiya to come out of the tent to see outside. It was like, in Arshiya’s terms, “winter wonderland”. it was really covered whole area with snow and snowfall continued till we left the campground.
While driving back, we had discussion on the trip, Both Arshiya and Lakshmi wanted to come back to this place before school starts but for 3-4 days stay.
Pinnacle National Park:
Pinnacle National Park camping was bit contract experience to our last trip, temperature was very hot. It suppose to be 2 hour 15 mins drive from our home, instead 1 hour extra it took. we started at before noon i think, we are there around 3:30 we stopped at general store for a quick information. I came to know about swimming pool at pinnacle park from park website. we checked general store and swimming pool timings then headed to campsite. camp site was open area on side. After quickly put tent in shady area and had quick lunch before we go to pool area. We were in pool till past 6.
Then we went for a quick hike at Bear Gulch Cave trail. we did not go to inside the caves as it almost becoming sunset and we could not find much crowd surrounding areas. it was our first solo family hiking in woods and rocks with very less crowd(we might have seen around 10 people 2 to 3 groups) in 2 miles up and down hike. Even though there was enough time for sunset, it was dark on the trail. 
We hiked as long as Arshiya can comfortably hike, when she tired we stopped there did explored the small caves near by. Then we returned to parking lot and started driving back to campground. On the way we spotted few deer and its cubs too, we stopped for some time watching them and sun also setting slowly from pinnacles peak.
This isolated park packs surprising beauty, with peaks formed by volcanoes along the San Andreas Fault that are distinct from the surrounding landscape. The park's namesakes are the eroded leftovers of the western half of an extinct volcano that has moved 200 miles (320 km) from its original location on the San Andreas Fault, embedded in a portion of the California Pacific Coast Ranges. it was interesting to know how it is drifted from its original area.
We were not allowed to do campfires in park when we visited. we were at campground watching top of the hills by binoculars, we also bought one for Arshiya from general store. she fully on top of it , finding all birds flying near the tops. thats one of her best time passing for rest of day. After it becoming dark we can see stars sleeping in our tent. we did not cover the top of tent for most of time. just before we to go sleep we covered and opened all tent zippers for ventilation with mesh on. It was fun to watch stars with Arshiya and she saw few airplanes and thought they are moving shining stars.Next Morning as usual get up, pack up and drive back to home.
Mt. Diablo State Park :
I picked Diablo camping ground for next trip as i am not interested to drive too far and it is near to bay area within the out skirts of Dublin/Concord. We reached the base of Mt Diablo within an hour from our home. But it took a while to drive up even though it is not too far in distance to go to campgroup because of the hair pin trans, Long winding road with blind curves and lot of bikes, i need to extra careful while uphill driving with narrow roads and sharp falls.
From wikipedia: On a clear day the Sierra Nevada is plainly visible. The best views are after a winter storm; a snowy Sierra shows up better, and summer is likely to be hazy. Lassen Peak, 181 miles (291 km) away, is occasionally just visible over the curve of the earth. Sentinel Dome in Yosemite National Park is also visible.
But we are not lucky enough to view all the above mountain peaks as it was lot of haze in sky no clear view on any direction. We went to top of the mountain to view the surrounding from there, we could not spend more than 10 mins i guess because of lot of wind. Before we go to top, we wanted to view sunset from the top but after going there we changed our minds instead we wanted to watch from our campground, there is near flat area less than 100 meters from our camp site. we were bit unlucky to watch whole sunset as we dropped two indians with a dog from top of the mountain to group campsite on our way back to campsite. we watched final few mins of sunset.
From wikipedia: On a clear day the Sierra Nevada is plainly visible. The best views are after a winter storm; a snowy Sierra shows up better, and summer is likely to be hazy. Lassen Peak, 181 miles (291 km) away, is occasionally just visible over the curve of the earth. Sentinel Dome in Yosemite National Park is also visible. 
But we are not lucky enough to view all the above mountain peaks as it was lot of haze in sky no clear view on any direction. We went to top of the mountain to view the surrounding from there, we could not spend more than 10 mins i guess because of lot of wind. Before we go to top, we wanted to view sunset from the top but after going there we changed our minds instead we wanted to watch from our campground, there is near flat area less than 100 meters from our camp site. we were bit unlucky to watch whole sunset as we dropped two indians with a dog from top of the mountain to group campsite on our way back to campsite. we watched final few mins of sunset.Big Basin SP :
Big Basin campground was also picked as it near to bay area it is just 22 miles from Saratoga downtown. It also two night camping but we cannot make it as i have work on Friday night. I was not sure when we started but it was around 3PM when we were at park visitor center. we did late check-in and got registration sticker when headed to camp site. Almost all our neighbors were just came or started coming within 1/2 hour to 1 hour window. It is state park we found many Indian families apart from ours.
Our standard plan for one night camping is to get up in the morning prepare lunch and pickup something drive-thru for a quick bite till we have lunch. we go there and have lunch or pitch a tent relax and have lunch. After having late lunch, we walked on a trail to general store as Arshiya keep on pushing us to general store. Then, started to attend ranger program. it seemed we misunderstood about ranger program and place to gather. we missed one of the evening program before sunset. with disappointment, we walked to General store to pick-up campfire wood and in addition to on-demand we also picked up ice-cream for Arshiya.
we spent some time there near general store, visitor center and museum before we headed to campfire event before sunset. we were the first one to campfire center, Park Ranger was already there with some kids games and started fire in the large campfire pit. we didn't know she is providing marshmallow with long sticks to use. Arshiya played with some puppet show sticks and did some coloring before campfire started and small crowd gathered. I helped Arshiya to roast one or two Marshmallows. after watching few mins of video about the park, we left to the place.
While i was making fire ready, Lakshmi and Arshiya went to showers, everything is ready when they returned. to my surprise Lakshmi bought batter to prepare "bonda" or "punugulu" it is type of indian snack or lite food prepared with black lentils or urad bean. It fun preparing on top of campfire ring. we prepared dinner one item at a time very relax, we had dinner very slowly. It was a fun day even though we did not do much activity except spent some time at the tiny creek next to camp site, within 100 ft distance.
The only problem we experienced there are lot of bugs mainly mosquitos, when have not seen this issue in previous campgrounds. even though we used bug-repellent spray they hit hard on Arshiya.
Next day before we left to home, we went on a hike with park ranger. we hiking along with crowd for around 40 minutes before Arshiya gave up. Then we returned to visitor center and started driving back. Unfortunately while returning there was big traffic at Saratoga Downtown, a vehicle exhibition was going on, it took us almost 2 hours just to cross saratoga downtown from park entrance. it was suppose to be an hour and 15 mins to home. After crossing saratoga downtown, All three wanted a big break before to continue, i badly needed a coffee from Starbucks.
Our standard plan for one night camping is to get up in the morning prepare lunch and pickup something drive-thru for a quick bite till we have lunch. we go there and have lunch or pitch a tent relax and have lunch. After having late lunch, we walked on a trail to general store as Arshiya keep on pushing us to general store. Then, started to attend ranger program. it seemed we misunderstood about ranger program and place to gather. we missed one of the evening program before sunset. with disappointment, we walked to General store to pick-up campfire wood and in addition to on-demand we also picked up ice-cream for Arshiya. 
we spent some time there near general store, visitor center and museum before we headed to campfire event before sunset. we were the first one to campfire center, Park Ranger was already there with some kids games and started fire in the large campfire pit. we didn't know she is providing marshmallow with long sticks to use. Arshiya played with some puppet show sticks and did some coloring before campfire started and small crowd gathered. I helped Arshiya to roast one or two Marshmallows. after watching few mins of video about the park, we left to the place. 
While i was making fire ready, Lakshmi and Arshiya went to showers, everything is ready when they returned. to my surprise Lakshmi bought batter to prepare "bonda" or "punugulu" it is type of indian snack or lite food prepared with black lentils or urad bean. It fun preparing on top of campfire ring. we prepared dinner one item at a time very relax, we had dinner very slowly. It was a fun day even though we did not do much activity except spent some time at the tiny creek next to camp site, within 100 ft distance. 
The only problem we experienced there are lot of bugs mainly mosquitos, when have not seen this issue in previous campgrounds. even though we used bug-repellent spray they hit hard on Arshiya. Next day before we left to home, we went on a hike with park ranger. we hiking along with crowd for around 40 minutes before Arshiya gave up. Then we returned to visitor center and started driving back. Unfortunately while returning there was big traffic at Saratoga Downtown, a vehicle exhibition was going on, it took us almost 2 hours just to cross saratoga downtown from park entrance. it was suppose to be an hour and 15 mins to home. After crossing saratoga downtown, All three wanted a big break before to continue, i badly needed a coffee from Starbucks.
Golden Gate:
It was half a day trip just go to Golden gate bridge stop there for some time walk on the bridge and come back, not any other activity is planned. we went there after lunch spent around two hours. luckily it was sunny day we can clearly see the blue sky.
Lot of traffic in san Francisco. we drove very slowly till golden gate, we enjoyed as we don't have any work planned. after more than an hour we reached parking other end of the bridge crossing golden gate bridge.
I couldn't get any parking spot even after fe w rounds of whole parking lot. Then told Lakshmi and Arshiya get down and have fun, when they are done look for me/car in parking lot. Meanwhile if i get a spot, i would call and figure where to meet.
Lot of traffic in san Francisco. we drove very slowly till golden gate, we enjoyed as we don't have any work planned. after more than an hour we reached parking other end of the bridge crossing golden gate bridge.
I couldn't get any parking spot even after fe w rounds of whole parking lot. Then told Lakshmi and Arshiya get down and have fun, when they are done look for me/car in parking lot. Meanwhile if i get a spot, i would call and figure where to meet.
i was circling the parking lot to get a spot, after few rounds i got a spot, we went for Lakshmi and Arshiya they were on bridge walked around a mile and planning to return to parking lot. i met them in the middle then we all came back to car. Then we went for drive on CA till the base of Muir wood national monument and drove back from Richmond-San Rafael Bridge watching sunset.
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