Hubby and I rented a large cabin up in Idyllwild this past weekend. We invited our two grown kids (and grandson) to come up with us and spend a long weekend together. They did and we had a good family get-together, with smores, a wood stove, two nights of BBQ and salmon last night. We all rested and read books and poked around the little town. The stores up there aren't great, so we brought our own food and made breakfast in the cabin every morning. Could somebody tell me why coffee is always so much better up in the mountains? It was down below freezing Saturday morning and there was ice on the pine trees. I thought it was snow, but the locals told me "Nope, it's frost!". A cold front did move through the region Friday night and it rained early Saturday morning. I've never seen this before, so I took 10,000 photos of it! Isn't it interesting?
5 comments:
That's more frost than I've ever seen. Looks COLD whatever it is! Thank goodness for wood stoves and hot coffee.
Whatever it was, it looked pretty good! I enlarged the photos and they were pretty darn cool.
A couple of weeks ago, we were up in the Idyllwild area. We were told about an old dirt road called the Idyllwild-Banning Road. It was the old dirt track people used to get over the mountains (back in the day). Well, we found it, we took it, and we liked it. Some parts were pretty good and some pretty bad.
When I first moved to Idyllwild in 1981, I rented a cabin in some dark corner off South Circle Drive, then I rented the upstaris Apartment house above the old Towne Crier Newspaper Office at the Fern Valley Corners where Baker in the Forest, Chart House and the famous Pizza place was. I had a sunny location and great views. I could lay in bed at night and hear the roar of Strawberry Creek.
I use to go fishing early in the morning in springtime when it was still cool and crisp out and the smell of Woodstoves, Coffee and Bacon permeated the air. Yeah Camping Coffee taste the same in the mountains too. BTW, I also use to roll down my car windows when I'd pass Lake Hemet Campground and experience the same mountain high aromas as experienced in Idyllwild. You just can't get enough of that scent.
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The mountain areas have their own version of climate and rain when everything else below in Southern California is sunny.
Here's a fun thing for you to look for if you ever go up in the winter time hoping for a snowy weekend. There's never any such thing as an accurate Weather Forecast, but there are some anomalies of note that will tell you once you are up there as to whether or not it will definitely snow before it does.
From my vantage point out in the open with views all around me I would watch all the chimneys arounf the valley. Smoke normally trails upwards slowly even when it's gloomy or rainy. However just before it begins to snow, look at the smoke coming out of those chimneys. Notice that the smoke plumes are no longer trailing upwards but rather slanting downwards to the ground. In the next 15 - 30 minutes it will start to sleet then snow.
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Wow, that's a gorgeous frost. Sure looks cold. But a good fire with family and smores probably got everyone warm.
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