In June, we packed up the camp gear for the first camping trip of the year. The trip was highly anticipated; however, so many things went wrong. Jenn left Sacramento with a cold and later burned her fingertips on a candle one night. Randy forgot to bring a sleeping bag so we had to go into town to pick one up before he froze another night. And then…the rain fell. Two out of our three tents leaked so we packed up our belongings miraculously in an hour and left before the thunderstorms struck. Our four night trip was cut in half. Aside from all of the above, we had a great time. Here’s yet another review of a campground! 
Big Basin Redwoods SP (Huckleberry) – June 2011
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Location: 20 miles north of Santa Cruz
Amenities: Flushing toilets, showers, and a general store
Pets: Allowed at no additional charge
Pros: Big Basin Redwoods SP is the oldest State Park in California and it shows. As soon as you enter the park, you can visit the convenient/gift store. You can save a lot of room in the car by buying milk, eggs, etc at the store. However, like a typical tourist trap, everything is overpriced…even the firewood ($10.25 a bundle). There are a lot of paved trails that dogs are allowed on. One trail led us to the Sempervirens Falls, which is a small 17 ft waterfall that is worth the quick and easy walk. Bathrooms were clean and most had running water (sinks) to wash your hands. Sometimes he antiseptic soap just isn’t enough so it’s nice to have running water! The campground had a lot of showers so we never had to wait in line.
Cons: Although the campsites are nestled amongst beautiful redwood trees, the sites were small and did not have a lot of flat areas for tents. One of our sites didn’t have room for one tent (seriously, we had to put the tent in the driveway). Granted, our tents are like mansions and can fit two queen air mattresses…but that’s besides the point. A lot of the sites were small and only had room for small pup tents (hopefully, you don’t mind being on a slant). The fire rings were placed too closely to the picnic tables so it was hard for us to have our “ring-o-fire”…luckily we had two sites to choose from. The campground is close to Santa Cruz so a 40 minute drive will take you to the Boardwalk; however, to get in and out of the park, you have to drive through the twists and turns on the the tight roads. Hopefully, you don’t get motion sickness because this was quite a challenge for a few of our backseat passengers. Lastly, the mosquitoes were out in full force. Poor Lauren got bit on her face and all over her legs. Load up on the bug spray (skip Off and get something more powerful) because the citronella candles don’t work. The campgrounds also have hungry raccoons so follow the advice of the rangers and store all the food overnight in your car.