Lake Arrowhead

I had the fortune to go on a two-day retreat earlier this year at UCLA’s conference center in Lake Arrowhead. It lies on the San Berdardino mountains- in fact, Big Bear, a well-known ski spot, is accessible if you take the other turn up the fork along the drive up. This was the first work retreat I’d ever been to, and it was a beautiful adventure.

There are two bedrooms per chalet, and we were surprised when it turned out that each bedroom was on its own floor! Frankly, that’s too much space for me; it actually felt lonely having that much space all to myself; we even had our own bathrooms. But the luxury of it all was pretty damn awesome.

My bedroom was on the first floor because I’m lazy and don’t like to climb stairs.

View from my chalet the next morning. It was a foggy January.

Part of our assignment was to go out and get some sample photos for the project we were working on. Deb, Jac, and I clumped and set out with our dSLRs:

Deb by the shore.

Jac’s fiery hair a contrast against the evergreens.

I have always been fascinated by tiled roofs- it’s something I’d only ever read about in story books when I was a child.

Not forgetting about work!

Jeff brought over a box of beautiful Pantone postcards! Deb and I were like vultures over them.

The experience at the dining hall of the conference center was note-worthy, not only for its dining ware, but also for the sheer extravagance of multiple courses for lunch and dinner. Breakfast was buffet, and I gorged myself on scrambled eggs (plus the novelty of scrambled egg whites, what.):

Look at all those silverware. Fancy dining was fancy.

Dessert for lunch was Panna Cotta, which tasted so good we had to find out what exactly it was right then.

Fitz was adamant about photobombing Jac’s celebration of a bowl of fruit found outside the dining hall.

On the last day, a few of us decided to stop by the Lake Arrowhead Village on the way down the mountain. It was incredibly foggy, which made for mystery at the docks.