Family Camping Trip, Part 2

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but getting a campsite in August at Carpinteria is a bit of an ordeal. The campground is owned by the State, and the State opens its reservations for August on February 1st. Not a big deal, right?

I didn't use to think so, until the first time I attempted to book a campsite. I remember leisurely logging on to the State's website on February 1st, a few minutes after registration began (8 AM), thinking that I would have lots of campsites to choose from. Instead, I ended up booking the last campsite available in the entire campground. We ended up loving our campsite, but it was a bit snug for us.

The following year, I logged onto the website a few minutes earlier, but the site's server kept crashing. Around noon, there was a huge sigh of relief in our house when the campsite was finally booked.

This year, the night before the great website race began, I was on Facebook and I saw the status update for a friend: "Staying up until midnight. Going to try to book a campsite at Carpinteria."

What?! Could it be? I checked the rules. It said, "8 AM." Trusting the rules and not my friend's judgment, I went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, I checked Facebook again.  "Turns out you can't book it until 8 AM. Really tired."

When 7:54 rolled around, I logged into the State's website. At 8 AM, I battled it out between all of the other crazy campers and outdated state technology.

VICTORY! We got a great campsite, large and spacious, close to the bathroom, and even a little grass.