Big Bear Part 3

One of things I love to do up in Big Bear, is visit their new kitchen store.  It is called the Copper Q.  It is a high end kitchen store, carrying items such as Lodge cookware, and Viking small appliances, and knives, and beautiful imported linens, and pottery, and gift items.  They feature a large demonstration bar, where they do cooking demos several times a week.  A coffee bar, with fresh baked pastries, and will be getting their cooking school up and running soon.  My Mom and I are avid cooks, and this kind of place is like Disneyland to us!!!  Last time we were there, we bought a large LODGE enameled dutch oven in kelly green. This time, we bought a LODGE grill pan.  LOVE it!!  And a grilling cookbook.

I also bought a beautiful new table runner, and some fall tea towels.  I have a thing for tea towels.  I love a nice cotton flour sak tea towel, and I have them in all sorts of pretty patterns and styles for the season.  I will show those on another post.
The week was mostly spent on the water.  We did a lot of fishing.

These two guys did a lot of talking about their rod and reel set ups, and what bait to use.  To troll, or not to troll.  Bell or no bell.  Fly or hook.  Bobber or no bobber.  Eat it or release it?  On and on.

Like two little boys, looking to get into some trouble. They were fun to watch!  When Ron and Sue were down the hill, and it was just Greg and Ducey and I on the boat, I did a lot of this.

   My first hexagon above.  Below, a handful of garden grannies.

While tied off at the dam, there is always something interesting to see.
The Pirate Ship came screaming past us several times.

Sail boats whisked by and waved hello.

We watched the brave ones jump and dive off the rocks.

We shouted out encouragement to the ones who wanted to, but were scared.

 We watched skiers, tubers, swimmers, and all sorts of lake fun.  We watched them learn to wakeboard at the new wakeboard park right there in the same marina where we keep the boat.
Mostly, we just relaxed and did whatever we wanted to do.  Enjoying the beauty of this mountain lake.  From the observation station.

To the building of the new bridge at the dam.

That American Flag has flown from the boom since they began work on the bridge over a year ago.  I love to see it waving in the wind.
One thing we saw that was a first.....a catfish fry. Not the kind you coat in cornmeal and fry up in a cast iron skillet to eat with hushpuppies.   That was the only kind I knew about, what with my Mom and Nana from Texas and all.  But this was seen as we were getting on the dock one day to take the boat out.

This was fascinating to watch.  Mama and Daddy catfish, with their hundreds of brand new babies that they were herding from rock to rock for protection.  I could have watched them all day.
So, whether we were golfing, hiking, fishing, eating, visiting with friends and family, floating, napping, crocheting, birdwatching, boating, or anything else we did on our week up in beautiful Big Bear......we were having a wonderful and much needed week of doing all of this, or nothing at all.  It was delightful.....every.....single......day.
Thanks for letting me share it with all of you!

Come on back tomorrow to see what we were cooking the other night here at our house.
Kris