California, the bottom line

It's been almost a month since we returned from our California adventure. Since then Alyssa has been to Mexico on missions, Randy & Carrie to New Orleans with Mission Lab and Randy & Aaron leave for Mexico missions tomorrow. It's been a busy summer. I still haven't printed pictures from our trip, but I will. The bills for our trip have come in, so I thought it was appropriate to give you the details. Along the way I've included a few more pictures that Alyssa took.

This is Lombard Street, known as the "crookedest street" (is that a word?). My girls were so excited to go to San Francisco and see Lombard street, ride a street car and see the Full House street (not sure we saw that, they all look the same). People are always curious how much a trip like this cost. Randy & I are not exactly rolling in the money, and yet we have done 5 of these National Parks trips.

We started saving in 2008 for this trip. We began planning and making arrangements in the fall of 2009. When you stay in a National Park you often need to book your lodging early or you won't get a room. Our trip was 10 nights and 11 days. We needed lodging that would accomodate 5 people, because Aaron chose not to go. Our total for lodging was $1283.


Mirror Lake, Yosemite National Park

We flew into San Francisco from Atlanta, it was not non-stop. We had a connecting flight in Phoenix on the way out and Charlotte on the way back (yes, Charlotte...that is the hub for US Airways). We watched the airfares for several months and eventually booked with United. 5 round trip tickets cost $1346.

Once we arrived in San Francisco we rented a 12 passenger van from Budget. Since we were travelling with another family we could split the cost of the van rental and gas. We paid $744 for the van & gas.

We like to take scenic day hikes, but this sign gives you some other options in Yosemite.

Though we never hiked much more than 3 miles at a time, we drove over 1700 miles on the trip. We bought 94 gallons of gas. The average price per gallon was $3.14.


This is the top of Lassen Volcanic Peak. Alyssa used the zoom on the video camera to get this shot!

We enjoy the scenery in the parks but we also like to visit the gift shops. We buy postcards, t-shirts, magnets, books, puzzles, and other souvenirs. According to my calculations we spent $203 on souvenirs. This does not include what the kids may have spent of their own money, but they were always happy for mom to do the buying!

During our 11 days on the road we had numerous picnics. This eagle was spotted after a windy lunch at Manzanita lake. We typically like accomodations that include continental breakfast, as it cuts down on the food bill. This trip included only one such hotel. In two locations (Redwoods & Lassen) we were in houses so we were able to cook and pack picnics. When we were in San Francisco and Yosemite we at the mercy of the establishments there. The food bottom line was $625.

Here are the bears we saw in Yosemite...these were in Curry Village where some residents did not follow the rules about keeping food in the bear locker!

The miscellaneous of the trip totaled $477. If you are totalling the trip from the numbers above you should get $4678. Per person the cost was $935.60 (10 nights, 11 days) or $85 per day.

Since we saved for two years, I averaged saving $194 a month for this trip. The bottom line is, we went on this great trip and it is all paid for....or will be as soon as I pay the credit card bill.

The trip, the memories, the National Parks...PRICELESS!!!