Not sure how it is in another areas, but a lot of the cities in Northern California run "family camps." They own campgrounds around Yosemite or Tahoe, or elsewhere I suppose, and hold camps in the summer with lots of activities and very reasonable room and board. (You can attend any camp you wish, but is discounted if you are a resident of the city it belongs to).

This was our third year in a row. We had no choice this year since the San Jose camp was shut down due to some structural issues and water quality issues. Which is fine - the amenities at Sacramento camp are WAY better. HOT showers, and nice little cabins. Anyway, we kind of travel with San Jose relatives, so we have gone to both camps (dh went to SJ camp as a child).

We went with our parents and our niece.

We had a great time, and more on all of that later.

But, we were lucky we didn't get snowed out. They had these pictures up from just a few weeks ago. Up to a couple of weeks ago they still had 4-5 feet of snow hanging around. They were very busy clearing it all out in time, and the kids got lots of snow play.

These pictures were on their website, from end of May:





I'll show pictures later of how it was when we were there - you will see how busy they must have been, clearing out the snow! There were just a couple of snow piles remaining by the time we arrived.

Someone would say, "I guess we came a lot later last year." Um yeah, July 1? Yes, we came so much later last time. The snow was a wee bit unusual, but there had been some big storms in May.

Anyway, they cleared most of it out in time for camp. We had to contend with a lot of mud though!

In the end, the weather was divine. If not for the cabins, we might have really FROZE. Weather was still hitting in the high 30s overnight. Thankfully we had good shelter. The days were beautiful, sunny and warm. Even the beach ended up being a nice 80-degreed day. I have lots of pictures of the kids playing in snow piles in their shorts and flip flops - hehe.

At home I set the thermostat to 87, for the cat, in case of freak heat wave. I am extra careful about that after a friends' house got up to 100 degrees in an unexpected heat wave, while they were on vacation. It killed their fish. SO, I always set the air, and this was the first summer it looked like it didn't kick on at all while we were gone. The house was 80 degrees upon our return.


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ETA: I am linking an old post about family camp since I got so many questions last year - answers some questions...