Cabin in the Woods

  People tend to be creatures of habit. It's something I've heard for a long time and it seems to be accurate as far as I can tell and to be honest I find myself to be a good example of it at times. But every once in awhile an opportunity comes along that, if accepted, will open your world to new avenues. For us this new avenue led us to renting a cabin for our trip to Yosemite.
  Typically we would either be staying in our RV's or in a hotel room but this trip didn't lend itself to RV's very well and really when you think about it a hotel room really splits up a group to the point that it becomes annoying when you're trying to coordinate meals and activities. So while searching for a place to stay we came across The Redwoods At Yosemite. They are a property management company that care for what is essentially a small neighborhood of cabins located inside of Yosemite National Park. We needed a cabin that would hold the ten of us comfortably and affordably. Turns out they had just the cabin for us and it's called "Soots Me."

  We picked up the keys in the late evening of our first of three nights (the minimum by the way) and pulled into the spacious driveway with just enough time to unload the Jeeps with the remaining daylight. We were greeted with a spacious great room with a river rock fireplace, a large table and plenty of seating options. The four bedrooms had plenty of room for our luggage and then some and it has two bathrooms to serve guests.
  Of course the draw to the cabin for our group was the fact that there was a kitchen. Food is always a huge expense when traveling and we had hoped to save us some cash by shopping and cooking our own meals. This ended up working out as close to the script as you could hope for. We got to eat good food that we were interested in eating and three days of groceries ended up costing little more than one meal would have cost us had we chosen to find a restaurant. By the way the nearest restaurant to Wowona is over twenty minutes away and out of the park. I'm sure the Wowona Hotel has a restaurant in it but we didn't really check in to that.

  Another bonus to this cabin was that the owners were happy to give a little history about the cabin to those staying here. A guest book welcomed us with a quick description of when the cabin was built and black and white photos of swimming and skiing adorn the walls of the great room revealing more details of what I can only say is a very well loved cabin.
  We had never been to Yosemite before this trip and we were a little surprised by how crowded the park was and how little there was to see without a lot of hiking. Not that hiking is a bad thing but we would have just planned things a little differently. But "Soots Me" gave us a place to fall back to for some card games, casual conversations, and some horseshoes. I would have to say that it was the first vacation that I've taken in a long time where I actually had time to relax. I'm the kind that likes to go go go and see as much as I can while I'm away from home so it was a nice change of pace (but I don't see me getting used to it anytime soon.)
  In the end I'm very happy that we took the chance on renting the cabin. I wasn't sure how well it would work out but it turned out better than I could have ever hoped for. I could see us doing this again in future travels and I would encourage families to give try it. If you have enough people in the group to help split the costs it really doesn't cost any more than a hotel would so you're only obstacle is deciding on your destination. Good luck.

Brandan