"Ice" to be back

Its time to bid farewell to our beloved foothill surrounding San Bernardino County.  The journey back to Morgantown is a long one as we think back on our many experiences with family and friends, crammed into such a short time.

The view from Ontario Airport, clear and blue with snow-dusted mountains.

Our snacks are prepared for the journey as well.

Too soon, we stopover in Vegas.  All is sunny and clear, except for a little delay.

That's the Luxor in the distance.

Our plane pulls in a little late, ready to take us back to Pittsburgh.

Hours later, we begin our descent into Pittsburgh Airport, and we can see rolling hills of homes and trees thoroughly blanketed in white.  Our eyes widen at the thought of working through it.  On the ground, its a little icy but otherwise clear.

We are stuck in the cabin for some reason, so we QC all the bags going down the belt.

Weary travelers pick up their burdens before heading to the parking shuttle.

It appeared as though our car really had to be scooped and scraped in order to be road-ready.  Lucky for us, the parking folks did it for us!  We noted how the the car probably hasn't ever been this cold before.  It was to be an utterance a few times more in the coming season.

Because we weren't quite sure what the roads would be like, we opted to stay in Pittsburgh for the evening.  We made all the grandest plans to spending the next day in the city.  When morning came, we loaded up the car with our luggage and played in the snow for a bit.  We found that we were oh-so tired from our visit to California! 

View from our room

Car-cicles

Working on our snowball technique

Petite snowman and ammo.

Target practice

Car-cicle psycho attack

A history of little feet.

We had a slow and lazy breakfast.  Long after bagels and oatmeal had been put away, we sat around reading the news, sipping coffee, and watching Puss in Boots until late in the afternoon. 

After awhile, we watched feline Antonio Banderas from our own tables so we could spread out!

Paltry choices, an almost perfect pyramid, a hierarchical beverage system with juice on the top.

A little bit of play and rest hit the spot.

After Puss in Boots, a local program came on touting a family-owned barbecue restaurant nearby, with sauce made from granddad's recipe.  That sounded right enough to finally start our adventure! We hopped in the car and navigated the area until we found the place.  Wilson's Barbecue was not easy to spot, so at one point, we parked and followed the scent of chili and mesquite. When we got to the little-hole-in-the-wall, we were told that they were completely out of ribs and wouldn't be able to restock for another couple of hours.  We were a little hungry, but not too sad, because we had already made plans to visit the an art space just around the corner.

The Mattress Factory is a museum dedicated to showing contemporary art installations.  Our favorites were the experiences by artist James Turrell.  His clever and exacting use of architecture and light to manipulate one's experience within sparsely lit spaces.  James Turrell pieces are too tricky to photograph, so you'll have to see them yourself - he has a big show going on at LACMA right now!

As you can see, we had fun going through these Yayoi Kusama rooms.

A lovely mid-century Royal Chrome set in the lobby, photo taken for Shelley.

Pergola snow.

Potted plant merge-cicles.

Full of artful experiences and well-worth-the-wait barbecue, we find the sun setting quickly on us.  We hope to bound off to our nearest Trader Joe's - in fact, our only Trader Joe's - to gather provisions.  Our plans are thwarted when we come back to find our car battery dead.  Its a long and  drawn and confusing exchange between west coast and east coast AAA's before we have our chariot running again.


So much for Trader Joe's.


Its dusk now and the light has diminished.  We're not sure how icy the roads will be, so we take off for Morgantown with caution. Our long day of travel is over, and we are back in our cozy and petite home in the middle of not-much.

The next day, its time to chip away at the proverbial iceberg of a laundry pile.  We were never able to fix the washer, so we take turns sitting on it to keep it from rattling too much.  It's back to Morgantown ways again...

... with a little piece of home.