Big Bear 2

My friend bought a house in 2011. She was surprised that she had stellar credit; she’d always paid cash for everything. She had fun with it; once they told her how much of a loan she was good for, she put in more than a dozen offers on houses, "shopping", she said.

She can’t find a reliable contractor though, and the one she did find turned out to be an idiot and a rip-off; Jhni, who has lived in the community for over thirty years, will make sure his state contractor’s license is pulled. She does office work for several businesses; she knows stuff and how to do it and who to talk to. She is thinking about just walking away from the house. it’s been such a poor experience, and says that would be no real change; she’s always been a renter.

It’s too bad though; she’s in a good location, not far from the small airport and away from the tourist areas of Big bear Lake and Big Bear City. On Sunday we took a drive around the lake; the south side is where most of the civilization and people are. The hamlet of Fawnskin is on the north side of the lake; most of the land is Forest Service owned, and people rent the cabins on 99 year leases but don’t own the land.

We started on the west end of the lake:

Looking west across the length of the lake.

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Stanfield cutoff, looking northwest.

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Looking southward, where most of the big houses are:

One of the ski slopes is in the distance; this has been a very dry year in Big Bear, and most of the slopes are white with man-made snow.

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Big bear averages over 200 days a year of clear skies; the University of New Jersey runs a world-caliber solar observatory on Big Bear Lake:

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It was closed to tours for upgrading the systems and optics of the observatory:

Next up, a look at the dam and the new road past it, part of The American Recovery Act.

 

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