Day Trip to Big Bear Lake, Ca

March 21st, 2016

The temperatures have cooled and wind is forecast for late afternoon so we delayed our trip on the Aerial Tramway until later in the week. I ordered our mail to be delivered as they accept mail deliveries here.

We decided to do a day trip to Big Bear Lake, which is just under 2 hours drive from Desert Hot Springs which is where we are at.  We love Big Bear and have been there a few times.  Ryan used to go to a summer camp near there. There is also a wonderful coffee shop, Big Bear Coffee Company, that we like to get our coffee from.

We were soon on the winding road up the mountain and surrounded by the tall pine trees.

 

We discovered there was still some snow on the slopes.

                                   

The sun was shimmering off the snow on the mountains, it was really pretty.

Eventually we arrived at the southern end of the lake.  Bryan was remembering when he & Ryan had gone fishing on the lake.

We stopped at the village and walked around.  We went into our favorite gift store and I sent Ryan this picture and said "Guess where we are??"  He said "That's the best gift shop in Big Bear". Ha!!Ha!!

Can you see me peeking through the legs of the mountain lion?

The village

A fire pit (what a good idea)

We decided to sit and eat our lunch in a park by the lake.  We had been good and made a packed lunch for a picnic.

The carvings are always a favorite.

 The village has changed a little and some of the stores are not there.  Our coffee shop had moved from it's original location but we found it and remembered that it had actually moved here the last time we were here.  We bought Bryan's favorite Strudel Doodle and I got Almond Joy to try. So we were happy.

We drove on a different route back down the mountain. The views were just as amazing.

We got back to town and decided to treat ourselves to Red Lobster for dinner.  The wind was picking up and by the time we got home it was blowing fairly hard.

We settled in for the night.  We ended up bringing the living room and bedroom slide in for the night when we went to bed, as the wind gusts were predicted to be up to 60mph. Lily sure was rocking and rolling.  It was like being on a boat at times but we survived.

March 22nd, 2016

The winds continued through the night and all day.  Boy, was it windy!!! We stayed in.  A couple of people left and a couple more arrived.  We were amazed anyone would drive in these winds.  There's no way we would have risked it. The winds finally subsided late into the evening.  We did put the slides back out and managed to get some sleep tonight.