The Search for Big Bears

We were able to get out of Cedar City fairly early on Friday morning. Of course, the preparation to get out of town was extensive, parts of it took the entire week. For example, I had to file some Eagle Scout paperwork for a boy in our ward who turned 18 on August 31st, and I finally got the last signature and merit badge posted to the Utah Scouts site on Thursday afternoon. Whew!

We had a delightful drive to Baker, California, and even got through the rush hour traffic in Las Vegas in short order. Bubby had her heart set on breakfast at The Mad Greek in Baker (a Triple D location). It was truly a dive, but the menu was extensive, and we were late for the breakfast rush and early for the lunch crush. We shared an omelet that contained gyro meat, tomatoes and onions, accompanied by hashed browns and pita bread for toast. We even shared a custard filled Greek pastry. It was OK.



We turned off of I-15 at Barstow, and headed south to the Lucerne Valley and then up the north slope of the San Bernardino mountains. Our faithful navigator Tom Tom took us right to the driveway of our accommodations, the Worldmark on Starvation Flats Road.

We hooked up with our friends the Englesteads, who were enjoying the pool when we arrived. After moving in, we did a little touring and had lunch at a Mexican restaurant. This is a fun couple, the ones who made it possible for us to stay at the Worldmark resort in Oceanside. We will be taking residence there on Sunday afternoon.

We did a drive around Big Bear Lake, stopped to check on a couple of flea markets, and made it bake to our lodging in time to eat dinner (a lovely Thai chicken salad that will be trying to duplicate) and a rousing game of Bloody Smash (Bubb was proud that she won).

We were awake early but not wanting to bother our hosts, we slipped out at 6:30 AM for a brisk walk around town. We visited several neighborhoods and found a couple of grocery stores. We even had a cream cheese filled pastry at a Mexican bakery.

We returned to our digs at about 8:30, and had time for a new.familysearch.org lesson on how to look at birth certificates from Ron. Nancy fed us a lovely breakfast of ham and eggs, and we all went for a walk in search of yard sales and "big bears". Just as the pineapple is the symbol of hospitality in New England, carved wooden bear statues are the symbol of hospitality at Big Bear. We got a lot of great photos. We also visited a ton of yard sales. We didn't buy much, but we looked at everything while enjoying a couple of miles of walking in the cool forested streets.






When we got back home, we changed, and headed for the pool for swimming, sun, cribbage, lunch, more sun and swimming, and then finally (after 4:00 PM) we all showered and dressed for the day.

So far this outing has been nothing but fun. Stay tuned.

Buboppy