Ari Tamura had his Labor Day weekend planned out. He envisioned his family camping out near Lake Tahoe.
But a couple of things happened that forced him to come up with a Plan B.
"The Bay Bridge being closed," Tamura said. "We wanted to avoid that at all costs."
And the Tamura family wanted to avoid the smoke from the Rim Fire near Yosemite that was drifting over to Tahoe.
"Definitely, we wouldn't want to be stuck in some fire situation so definitely steer clear of that," Tamura said of why he changed plans. "So we just came this way instead."
Where they ended up was the Sanborn County Park campground -- a short drive from their home in Pacifica.
"We love it. This is my first time here," Tamura said.
Other campers like Linda Sherburne from Saratoga heard horror stories from friends who tried to go camping in Tahoe last weekend.
"They had planned on staying for five days and they wound up only staying one night because they got there and the smoke was much worse than they had hoped it would be," she said.
Many local campgrounds like Sanborn said they are booked solid for the holiday weekend.
The Tamura family said they don't mind spending their dollars locally.
"There's enough to go around," Tamura said. "Yosemite shouldn't mind so much."