I'll just say again that I hope I haven't derailed any plans that anyone feels strongly about. If everyone decides on PF I am still interested...just thought that if nobody was really planning on doing a lot of the touristy stuff we could all save some money and avoid traffic by going to a more "out of the way" location.
If we decide on Defeated Creek, we should try to settle on a weekend asap to hit the 6 month booking window. For instance, if you wanted a stay beginning the third weekend in June, or Friday June 18th , you would need to book on December 18th. I don't think it works like Disney dining where you actually count 180 days back. I think you just count back 6 months from the date you want to check in and you can book up to 2 weeks from that date, if that makes sense. The lakefront sites go pretty quickly, but interior sites and tent sites are more readily available.
In any case, if we are interested in this park we should decide on a time period folks want and then everyone can go on the recreation.gov site to make their own reservations 6 months before their preferred arrival date.
For me, the third or fourth weekends in June would work, as would almost any time in July or August. We might be able to swing some weekdays too in that time period. Even though we homeschool, May is pretty booked up for us as my DD#2 is being confirmed that month and there are activities nearly every weekend.
Maybe we should start a poll on what dates folks prefer?