The Big Bear Lake Zoo

This place called " Jaspers" in Big Bear Lake had the most amazing
Barbeque!

Daryl makes friends with some locals:)

The downtown area

Our "hotel"..Its a BYOTP kinda place ( as in Bring your own Toliet
Paper)

I pose with the local mascot; everything here has " Bear" in its name!

I promised to continue the story, so here goes:

When we first got to out hotel, Big Bear Lakefront Lodge, it looked fine from the outside. We got our key from a box by the front office, and opened up our room. Stepping inside, however, I thought I was in a bad horror movie; the carpet was dirty, the bed made with only a flat sheet and blanket, no phone, and towels you could see through if you held them up to the light. All Daryl and I could do was laugh! We later came to find out that there was no housekeeping service ( although there was an envelope where we could leave a tip for the wonderful service), so we made sure to go to the office the next day to pick up extra towels and toliet paper in case ran out at nightime.

Big Bear itself was very pretty; only problem was we could not get a cab, could not rent a car ( the one and only car rental place was closed on weekends) and civilization in the form of food and stores was a long walk away, on dark roads with no sidewalks. We found some great places to eat, some cool little stores to spend money in, and rode he public bus system from one end of the mountain to the other. We went to a cute zoo, where Daryl had the time of his life making new friends up close and personal with a badger who was figuring out what condiments he wanted to use with his lunchtime meal of "dead rat" in his mouth. We checked out the ski area ( although we dont ski) and generally had a great time.

Oh, and I forgot to add: while we were on the plane going there I received a voicemail that Buckcherry had canceled!

I am back from California and Big Bear Lake and I can tell you that it is a beautiful place, but having been there I don't see the need to go back ever again.

It was a crazy journey...to begin with out car service driver, when meeting us at the airport at 10:00pm on Thursday night stated that he had no idea where we were going, since his GPS units ( yep...he had all three) didnt show the address. After Daryl and I suggested using Mapquest, he drove to his house ( yes, his house) and asked me to go in and use the computer and find it for him. A bit strange, but we were tired and wanted to just get there already and get to sleep.

I found it for him and we spent the next hour on a harrowing journey with Mario Andretti California style whipping around hairpin turns, all while we climbed to a height of 7000+ feet! Not that we could see anything; it was pitch black and we were in a car with tinted windows. On second thought, maybe that was a blessing in disguise.

I will continue this story with another post, later on tonight...

All set to leave on Thursday for Big Bear, California. Since the contest only offered us ine day, we decided to pay ourselves for an extra two days. We have a three hour layover each way in Dallas, which in and of itself is not terrible; what is terrible is that I HATE FLYING and this means I have to go up and down twice, which means that whoever sits next to me ( Not Daryl for 2/4 legs) might walk away with some serious nail marks in their legs and upper arms:)

We are staying at the Big Bear Lakefront Lodge and are flying into/out of Ontario Airport.

If anyone is reading this and has any input on either Buckcherry or Big Bear Lake area in general, I would be happy to get some comments.