Now, let's move to the first stop: BIG BEAR LAKE!!!

Big Bear is a city in South California, about 3 hours from San Diego, be aware the highway is a little dangerous in the last one hour. You will go up on the mountain and there are a lot of curves. If you are planning to go there, it's mandatory to have tire's chains, even if the weather is good, if you are stopped by the cops  without this on your car you will get a ticket and you never know when you will need one.

The city is really cute, but remember it's a small city, there are few options of places to eat and most of them are Italian, not a problem for me as I love italian food, but something that I missed there was a fondue place, the weather was really cold, and for me this type of weather asks for cheese fondue.

If you are arriving at night one tip that I have is go for the rental places as soon as you arrive, they are open until 10 pm and you can rent everything together.

Big Bear Boulevard is one of the main streets in the city and the rental stores are there, just walk around and choose one, they are all pretty good.

To eat I highly recommend the Peppercorn Grille (http://www.peppercorngrille.com), the ambience is great, the food is delicious and the staff is friendly and kind. If you are able to make a reservation in advance it's a good idea, the restaurant is usually full, but if you can't no problem the waiting time is not that big.

The Northwoods Resort Hotel, great hotel with a good price, I had a problem in the check in that was solved quickly and the room is very pretty, for sure I recommend and I will stay with them again.

Now the snowboarding part,  if you are a beginner like me, try to arrive early in the mountain, and early is 8 am, it worths I promise, after 10 the line for the lift becomes bigger and there are a lot of people going down, so it's not that easy to learn...

Be aware if you are doing snowboard for the first time you will fall, there's no way, it will happen more than once... Something that I learnt from all my falls is that when you stop worrying with falling you start to snowboard better, I'm far from being a professional but I had a lot of fun, there is nothing like the feeling of disconnection that you have when you are snowboarding, highly recommend!!! You will discover on the next days that you have some muscles that you never knew that were there and they will hurt, but once again it worths.

This week I'm planning to go to Temecula, a wine city next to San Diego, If I really go I will post some tips and photos....