May 29th 2009 - Big Bear City

Today we got to enjoy our first "zero" day that was not because of injury. We had a lot of errands to run. We decided to take our chances and try out the city bus that no one knows much about. After waiting 45 minutes at the bus stop, the bus finally arrived. Before we knew it, we were riding the "short bus" around town. Everyone on the bus knew each other on a first name basis. Everyone was friendly. There was a schedule on the bus, so we finally got an idea of the routes and times. The bus route didn't seem to make much sense - we did a lot of driving around grocery store parking lots and then the bus just stopped for 10 mintues. What the heck? Everyone got off the bus. Guess it was the bus driver's smoke break. Luckily it was near a Starbucks so Tom made a quick run over for a cup of what he calls "real coffee".

Soon the bus was moving again and we made it to "The Village" which was what we thought was the main hub of Big Bear Lake. Since it was still early and we were hungry - we stopped at IHOP for breakfast. With full bellies we headed off in search of the gear store. Found it quickly, but the sign said it wouldn't be open for another 2 hours. The town was dead. We didn't know what to do - so we got back on the bus and headed to the library. Even the library wasn't open yet. Luckily we only had to wait 20 minutes for it to open. We were able to get on computers for the allotted 60 minutes but were then told our time was up and we could not return until the next day. Hard to fit 5 days of communication into 1 hour!

We headed back to the gear store, which was finally open. We were in search of Vasque trailrunners, Body Glide, climbing tape, Superfeet and Platypus bladders. Unfortunately, they were "out" of every single thing. :(

Went to the post office to mail our bounce bucket, then various stores to pick up food/supplies for our next step of our journey.

All in all it has been a good day. We got a lot done and feel fully rested and relaxed. We are definitely ready to hit the trail again tomorrow though!

Next stop - Cajon Pass.