Yosemite Pines RV Resort

This is a large campground on a couple of different levels, very nicely spaced out. Some of the sites are quite close together but the campground seems to do a reasonably good job of not giving you immediate ‘neighbors’ – we did have someone next to us a couple of nights but they were only in a pop-up (and were very nice about the fact that the satellite was partially over the ‘line’ into their site!).

There’s a petting zoo at the entrance area with Jacob sheep, goats, alpacas, donkeys, chickens and one duck. The animals are fed every morning at 8am and the kids were invited to help feed and pet them. We went down on Tuesday morning, before our breakfast and chatted with the owner. He was explaining to the kids that the chickens and hen are allowed to run in and out of the enclosure. Previously, they had been contained in their large cage area, complete with roof, unfortunately a fox got in one night and they had no means of escape so they lost some. Now, the duck sleeps between the goats at night for protection and the chickens sleep in the tree! We went back home and googled Jacob sheep – a hardy brand by all accounts. Jake thought it was cool that there is a type of sheep named the same as him…..and so plenty of learning encountered before we’d even had breakfast!

Around the outer rim of the campground is a nature trail, I thought we’d have a quick walk around it on Thursday afternoon: mistake! It was an awesome trail but, by no means, quick. It took us quite a while to make our way past overgrown tree branches, up and down some steep inclines. At various points there was exercise equipment, which we tried our abilities on. Needless to say, it was a cruel reminder of my useless upper body strength; apparently lifting the little kids up to the high monkey bars didn’t count towards anything (thanks Jake for not giving me any kudos!)! Becca is such a wow at the monkey bars, she just flows along them, gets to one end and turns around, nothing to support her, and repeats the process until I stop her, fearful that her arms are going to come out of their sockets!

About a 10 minute drive away is the town/village of Groveland. I found a pretty decent market there, which had everything we needed – and didn’t find in the Mexican supermarket! There is also a library across the road, so Jake was happy, while I shopped, the kids spent a lot of time reading with Dave, before he headed to the playground with the little ones. We tried to return to the library at the end of the week, unfortunately closing time on a Friday is 2pm – Jake was highly unimpressed at having to come shopping, rather than being able to sit and read Calvin and Hobbes books – sorry Dude!