Could you go camping on weekdays? That's what DH & I do. BIG difference, esp now that school's back in session. We'll sometimes have a campground nearly all to ourselves.
We plan to go camp the middle of this week at Big Basin, a beautiful state park in the hills above Santa Cruz. Hopefully there won't be an influx of campers turned away from the national parks, but I kind of doubt it, the national parks in CA are pretty far away from the SF bay & Santa Cruz areas -- most of the campgrounds around here are in state or county parklands.