Thunder, Lightning, Fires and Mudslides ... Oh My!!!

Last weekend was Labor Day in the USA (a celebration for working people... so everyone was off for a long weekend!)

The Syren family went up in the mountains for a little vacation to escape the terrible heat wave with no end in sight we’re still having in San Diego. We drove up to 8440 feet (3000 meter) to Big Bear mountain.

We had a wonderful cabin. There was a room downstairs for Isabella. Mom and Dad slept upstairs in the loft! It was real cozy.










One reason to go to the mountains was to enjoy some beautiful hiking. Isabella's new early wake up schedule allowed us to get out nice and early!

It was wonderful but we did have some serious lightings shows and rain while there. Two times while we were hiking we had to turn back because of rain. Isabella who never been out in rain loved it and squealed as she got wet. Click here to see a video of us in the rain.

The second time we had gone pretty far so we really got trapped in the rain and had to run back to the cabin. Getting we was only part of the problem. Big pine cones by the size of a large bunny kept falling left and right and we had to run zig-zag to avoid getting hit by the cones which probably would have hurt a lot.



Beyond the excitement, our first morning walk was perfect and this picture really captures the beautify of Big Bear Lake. Don't forget you can click of any of these pictures to see them bigger!



On Sunday, we had lunch at Thelma’s. There was a large motorcycle gang having lunch there as well. Isabella charmed them all. They were all super nice and invited me out to see the bikes!





The day we arrived, lightning did hit and caused a fire. The whole weekend we could see black smoke coming from over the mountain. The freeway we drove to Big Bear on was closed... for 4 days! When we left had had to drive off the backside of the mountain.

Throughout the weekend, there we helicopters going back and forth from the lake over to the fire to dump water. It was quite a show. What we didn’t realize was as the rains came in, this second road got closed due to mudslides! Luckily by the time we left the mudslides had been cleared!

You can click here to see all the pictures and videos from the weekend.