More Morgno: Big Bear Weekend

Friday evening, we drove up to Big Bear. We arrived after dark, so I didn't take any pictures until the morning. We went out early to find if the Lake Front Lodge really was on the lakefront.

This is the road in front of the lodge.

It turned out that Big Bear was having a car show, so there were many antique cars on the village streets, which were blocked off to normal traffic.

Lorie liked the seats that looked like hands.

Not long after this, Lorie and Claire gave up on looking at cars and went into the shops.

Becca and I looked at all the cars. We kept finding additional parking lots full of "antique" cars. I'll put the car pictures somewhere else.

I'm not sure what this was supposed to be, but it was interesting.

This dog sounded like it could barely breathe enough to walk. The air is very thin there, as the elevation is over 6750 feet (2100m) above see level.

For some reason, they wanted me to pose under this sign.

We went to the Alpine Slide west of the village. Lorie is in the chair above post #2, and Claire and Becca in the seat to the right.

Here is the slide coming down the hill as Lorie starts down.

Claire finishes up.

After the slide, we drove around the lake and as we approached Fawnskin on the north shore, we saw these people walking down the road. It turns out that Fawnskin was having a renaissance fair that weekend as well. They posed for me.

We circled around via the Stanfield cutoff and visited the Moonridge Zoo back in the city. The zoo is near the Bear Mountain ski area. The zoo's primary purpose is to provide homes for animals that cannot be returned to wild because they are injured or habituated to humas.

They have some wolves.

A beautiful cougar sharpening its claws. There are wild cougars in southern California. They are very shy of humans, and are not often seen. A newborn horse was killed by one during the weekend in Acton. That is not close at all to our house.

A white pelican.

A bald eagle. One of the bald eagles lost a wing when it was shot. I think this one has its wings, but is blind in at least one eye. It was feeding time -- the rat was killed before it was given to the bird.

Here is Claire in the hotel room shortly before we left.

The front of the Lake Front Lodge as we depart.

Sunday, we decided to tour the lake on the new paddlewheel boat, Miss Liberty. Here are Claire and Lorie by the shore as we wait for the tour to begin. On the far shore, you can see the Big Bear Solar Observatory, the large white structure.