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Another day in paradise, warm with blue sky, lovely.
Breakfast and a round of laundry was followed by the pack as we got ready to move on.
The road to Big Bear was at first very dry, California has been in drought for a number of years and that's very obvious out this way. We crossed a number of dry rivers and creeks.
We stopped along the way a few of times for photo ops and once to check out a Costco store. After driving for about an hour we started to climb, all around us was hills, dry as they could be, boulders and scrub.
The height markers kept coming, 4000 feet, 5000 and still we climbed. The temps were dropping as we climbed but it remained sunny. The views were spectacular, huge valleys, massive boulders, patchy scrub with some wild flowers thrown in here and there.
From about the 6000 mark the scenery changed as forest started appearing. By 7000 feet it was windy roads and lots of trees. It's clearly more of a winter place, we passed a few ski resorts and the ski fields although free of snow now were clear to see.
Coming into Big Bear was special despite the fact it was raining lightly. There's more of a town than I had anticipated with bars, cabins, shops and even the dreaded maccas. We called the owner of our accommodation and he came to let us in. It's gorgeous, one of four cabins but so far we are the only ones staying here. It has a huge king size bed, so high I'd need a step to get on it if I was even an inch shorter lol. In the bedroom is a big 2-3 person spa and there's a full bathroom including a bath behind along with a kitchen. Everything we need :-)
We threw together a quick turkey salad for lunch and headed off to explore our home town for the next two nights.
Driving along the lake we came to the marsh waterfowl preserve. We walked along the broadwalks over the water or for the most part, where the water would be if not for the drought. We spotted terns, pelicans, ducks, blue heron and what we think is bear tracks in the mud to and from the water.
Continuing around the lake we crossed the causeway and stopped at the forest ranger info place, collected some trail maps and bought the annual pass that gives us free access to all the US national parks.
A short distance past the ranger station we stopped into a trail head and set off. It was all very steeply uphill and in the end we were probably another 1000 or more feet above the lake. It was a bit hard going up but down was a breeze. There were a lot of chipmunks scampering among the trees and rocks - Pete's first encounter with these guys so a bit special :-) we spotted the odd squirrel and some beautiful blue woodpeckers.
Others we encountered on the trail included some mad b*****s mountain biking, a chick walking her sausage dog who seemed more up for it that I would've thought given its stumpy legs and an old guy on a horse. The old guy confirmed there were bears, deer and coyotes at times but of course we didn't see any :-(
It was an awesome climb. We went the rest of the way round the lake back to our room and were quickly the in room spa with a glass of wine, the perfect end to the day.
We'd been recommended the local brewery bar and restaurant for dinner. It's about a 30 minute walk but as it was raining lightly we decided to drive, got there and the kitchen had closed a few minutes before at 7.30. WTF?
Back to our place we parked up and walked up the road to see what we could find. A sports bar seemed to be a lot more happening so we settled there. Turned out they had a very good cider on tap and served great fish and chips & wings.
Well fed and watered we headed home and crashed early, about 9.30. That's almost unheard of early for us but on the plus side it was our first day without giving in to the need for a nana nap.
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