A cabin in the woods with a warm drink in my hand watching snowfall outside the window – it’s probably a cliche dream for anyone who grew up in a hot and humid place. In early January, my dream came true as I visited Big Bear with Summer for a couple of days. With the beauty of working from home, we were able to pick an Airbnb cabin that had fast WiFi speed and delivered on its promise of a spectacular snow weekend.
The drive up was smooth thanks to our plan of reaching the cabin before it started snowing heavily. Summer had purchased snow chains for the tires to be safe but the transportation website mentioned that we didn’t need them so we hadn’t put them on. As the elevation started increasing, so did our enchantment. We were mesmerized by the snow clad rooftops, dreamy snow-covered trees, and lovely ski slopes sprinkled with enthusiastic kids. Finally, when we drove up to the cabin, it looked like everything I had imagined. Surrounded by snow and full of nice, thoughtful touches in the interior, the Cozy Bear cabin lived up to its name.
Then, about an hour after check in, it began. Soft flakes slowly transformed into heavy bits of white magic. I couldn’t stop but stay out and take it all in. Shot a bunch of videos and ran up and down the stairs a few times. I gazed at the surrounding trees and beautiful cabins which were getting a fresh coat of snow as I watched. I had seen snow in Himachal Pradesh, Kashmir and Uttarakhand in India but I had never witnessed snowfall. So it felt surreal and I naturally wanted to be in the thick of it for many hours. But my Mumbai body couldn’t take any more of the cold so I decided to get inside after just a few minutes.
Then, in alignment with my dream, we set up the fire in the fireplace, I brewed a hot cup of coffee, and set myself on a couch with a good vantage point. We watched the snow come down till it got dark and then dove into some hot food.
The next two days involved some more snow, walking to nearby restaurants wearing many many layers, and working from the best office I could imagine! The view from the table were I set up my laptop was something that’ll stay with me for a while.
I drove on the way back from Big Bear to Studio City (usually it’s Summer who drives her car while I handle the music). The drive took around 3 hours and was interesting with some turns downhill being a bit slippery due to ice. Once again, we didn’t need chains as it hadn’t snowed after our first evening at Big Bear. We had come well-prepared though after practicing how to put them on in Summer’s parking lot.
Overall, this trip served its purpose of emphasizing how Los Angeles is such a cool location where you can just drive to the beach in 30 minutes, or to the desert in an hour and a half, or to the snow in a couple of hours! And yes, it was also the trip of my first snowfall 🙂