From wandering in an RV for two years to a more permanent place...Big Bear Lake, California.

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com 

 Hi Photographer friends,

We've been wandering across the Country for the last two years. It was a lot of fun, but now, we needed to settle down some. We looked at several locations, from Vegas to  Bend Oregon, East Coast to West Coast, Desert to Ocean, and honestly we like all those places. Where could we settle down and be close to the ocean, the mountains, the desert, the forest, the big City, the small town? There's no such place...so I thought.

We re-discovered Big Bear Lake in California. The lake is located at around 7,000 ft elevation. It is a small town, but from there you can be in almost any climate within an hour. Los Angeles is west of it, Palm Springs is to the East, beaches are to the south and the desert is to the north, all reachable within about an hour, give or take. Where else can you swim nearby in the morning, ski in the afternoon and dine at a fine five star restaurant at night?

Big Bear is a touristic area with so much to do. In the winter, there are several ski resorts. Of course there is skiing, snow boarding, tubing, cross country skiing, hiking, snow shoeing, off roar tours, or just relaxing in front of the fireplace at one of the many world class resort in the area.

Summer is even more fun. Fishing, boating, biking, hiking, sailing, horse back riding, four wheeling, swimming, Kayaking, camping, etc. 

The most appealing reason for me is Photography. The scenery is breathtaking, the wildlife abundant and the opportunities endless. Me and my Pentax equipment will live happily there. Don't think for one minute that my involvement in photography will diminish. On the contrary, I will bring my photography to new levels. I might start a studio  or offer workshops. I will certainly continue writing e-books. The future is exciting.

From this home...

to this home

From this view...

to this view.

We will be in the house for Christmas, and I think we might just have a white Christmas.

Although we would love to be near our combined children and grandchildren, they are virtually in all four corners of the Country. Maybe this fantastic location will bring them to us.

Thank you for reading,

Yvon Bourque

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If you need an easy-to-understand e-book for your Pentax DSLR, please check our e-books store. 

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Picture of Ruby's behind taken with my Pentax K-5.

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com Hi Photographer friends,

This is Ruby (above). She 's got a big rear end! She replaced Miss Peggy (left). I had Miss Peggy for several years and many of my pictures were taken because she brought me to impossible places. It was a good time. Now, Ruby is going to tow this new House/Photo Studio that I finally saved enough to get. I will get possession of the Fifth Wheel on December 5th. I have been saving for years and purchased it five months ago with a big down payment and monthly payments until fully paid. December 5th is the big day. The rig will not be as agile as the Jeep, but it will be able to carry us to much farther places. I can guaranty that we will be gone every weekend in the coming summer. This will not stop my photography; it will make it easier to get away.

The k-5 and I went out today for a photo shoot of Ruby.

Ruby is much stronger than the Jeep, with a 7.3 Liter Diesel engine.

In addition to being a full size Pickup, Ruby has room for four people.

The dual rear wheels set-up allows her to carry enormous weight.

If only I could afford the Ranch where the photos were taken!

I cannot even afford the entrance gate.

The southern California San Bernardino Mountains are a great background.

This is the Fifth Wheel. Her name is "Tuesday". Together they form "Ruby Tuesday".

All the comfort of home, tagging along with us. Next summer will be great.

You will hear more about my Pentax cameras and "Ruby Tuesday" in the future. We will become best friends. I love photography, I love camping, I love traveling, so my blog will reflect all of my passions in the future..and then some.

Thanks for reading.

Yvon Bourque

P.S. Thank you for everyone that purchased my e-books during this Thanksgiving weekend. The K-5 and K-30 e-books sold in greater numbers that any other weekend before. Pentax e-books on sale here.

The K-7 goes primitive camping and rock crawling with us. Very rugged camera.

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Hi Pentaxian friends.

My Step-son and I went camping and rock crawling this weekend in the Big Bear Lake area of the San Bernardino Mountains. I tested the K-7 against humidity, dust and cold and it did just fine. The pictures below are samples of the weekend. I was too tired to add captions last night but here are some now. I also took some video and once stitched together, I will post the whole video experience here. It was impressive.

Thanks for looking,

Yvon Bourque

We started out from Lucerne valley and drove south to the San Bernardino Mountains.

At Elevation of 4,000 ft, we decided to air-down the tires so that we could get a better grip and it would be needed later on rough roads.

We stopped at the summit of the first mountain to take a few pictures and ...


to change our altitude!

The first part of the trip took us through mostly rocky terrain.

We reached the top of another mountain, About 6,000 ft elevation, where we thought we could set up our base camp. As it turned out, from there we could see a better spot in the distance at about 2,000 ft higher.

We left this rocky area through...

a newly paved road.

From there we drove East to the next mountain that showed as being 8,300 ft elevation on our map.

We finally got to a nice spot, surrounded by boulders and flat. We couldn't go any farther as the rugged road came to an end. The elevation was 7,604 ft and it was very peaceful except for the cry of coyotes in the woods behind.

We set out tents up and relaxed for a while.

The camp all set up, we were hungry.

We carved some meat out of a wild deer we caught...not! We did have some steaks and some Johnson bratwurst and some canned chili.

Looking around for wild game, I saw this enormous chipmunk crossing the trail. It must have weight at least 1 or 2 ounces. I figured that shooting it with a 12 GA shotgun wouldn't leave much meat to eat! I spared the little guy. Actually, I only shoot animals with my cameras. The shotgun we brought was more for safety reasons.

Steaks started grilling.

Steaks ready to eat.

The sun went down and temperature started to drop.

The sky turned out pink and purple and made the scenery ideal for silhouettes.

Donny got a little carried away with the starting fluid!

Now that's better.

There is nothing like watching a John Wayne movie in the wilderness.

A hot fire to warm your feet and the hike-in

movie theater was great.

Morning came and I can still smell the bacon cooking...yum!

We are starting our trip back home via the longest way we could find amongst the various trails.

The roads were not all that friendly, but really fun for driving with a Jeep.

We had to run on the tire sidewalls at times. That's why a good set of off-road is a must when riding on boulders.

It took us more than two hours to drive through this 3 miles long road.

The efforts paid off as we came to a nice water hole...

that even had tons of trouts in it. Next time we will plan to camp there one night, fish for our dinner and take a fresh and very cold bath.

Words of advice: If you camp in an area that goes below the freezing point at night, regular toilet paper does much better than "Cottonnelle wipes" which frozed to a block of ice. :(

The K-7 did great, it got water on it, a lot of dust, shot a around 20 Degrees F, and it got tossed around in the Jeep. This is one tough camera.