What To Do On A Rain Day??

We have found out quickly that checking the weather in LA is kinda silly.

"Yep! Its going to be sunny and beautiful again this weekend."

95% of our weekends here so far have been beach worthy. But what to do in the 5% when its rainy??

(I think I'm supposed to title this blog "Winter Sports Holiday in L.A. (Part 2)....but whatev.)

(Have I mentioned that this is the road we drive to work every morning...unbelievable!)

Yep, it was dark and gloomy in Hacienda Heights, but the mountains sure look nice. Yes! We had a brilliant idea!!! Lets go where the gross rain turns to beautiful snow!!

So we were off to go snowboarding at Big Bear!!! 1 hour drive later, the rain turned to snow!!

On the way up the mountain, we kept seeing these signs "Chains required". We kept laughing about them. 'Stupid California drivers can't drive in this tiny snow storm'. Turns out, they dont actually ALLOW you to go up the mountain without chains. They actually had a security stop to check if you had them on and if not....we were headed back down the mountain. Chains!?! You have got to be kidding me....

We found Wally right at the foothill

Alex was NOT happy about the schedule delay!

So, back up the mountain!!! ROUND 2!!!

I just know that this town made a KILLING on sending skiers and snowboarders back down the mountain. That mountain Walmart had 3 aisles of tire chains...really?....Not to mention these guys that were charging 40 bucks to install them!!

 Turns out, its quite the operation to install them. Who knew? But Alex worked a deal: If he did all the work, and the guy just showed us what to do, we could get the guy's expertise for free.

So while I stayed out of the cold, they went to work.

Finally, we were legal and headed up into the super snowy parts of the mountain! 

The snow was REALLY dumping down!! Everything was whited out.

But no issues with us. We just rode fresh powder ALL DAY!!!

We were feeling pretty skilled so we decided to run some trees! 

It didn't work out so well....

It finally cleared up and we were able to get a shot of Big Bear Lake!

Turns out, heading down the mountain is a bit challenging as well. Everyone had to 'de-chain'. 3 hours of traffic. Alex was tolerating it really well for a guy that can't STAND traffic. Yeah, LA highways systems are pretty frustrating for him! hehe

It was so bad. Dead stopped traffic. Everyone was making the best of it though. Families got out and started to play in the snow again. :)

Even with all the chains and traffic, it was one great day. We always have so much snow boarding together! :)

What a great rain day!! :)