Continuing South to Fernandina Beach (top to bottom!)

Started out in SC.  Still somewhat cold, but haven't seen snow at all today.  (Had to sleep with my down jacket on last night, though.  These southern motels only have thin blankets on the beds).  Lots and lots of sunshine today (need to get some sunglasses).  We're stopped for the night in Fernandina Beach visiting Jon and Heather.  What a neat, neat beach town!  Jubilee has traded the snow for the beach! More later ... 

Driving south, again (top to bottom)

Left Cranberry TWP about 8 this morning in snow.  The biggest problem was getting the defogger working in the car.  Had to stop to get more windshield wiper fluid in WV.  Side roads in West Virginia were all snow but the highway was fine.  Sun most of the day.  An extra hour of daylight in the evening this far south.  Still another 500 miles to go.

My car is ready!

Last look at Berkley Manor

Leaving Berkley Manor

W. PA

W. PA

WV

WV

WV

WV

WV

WV

WV

Southwestern VA

Southwestern VA

Southwestern VA

Southwestern VA

Western North Carolina

Western South Carolina

Ready or not - not

 

I really was planning to leave today.  Yes, there is a lot of snow and yes it is still snowing.  But this is the way life is in the North.  Supposedly the roads are clear, or sort of.

My problem is West Virginia, which I think is a challenge to drive even in the best of conditions.  I have to drive the mountains down to Beckley.  There is a winter storm warning in Beckley until noon today with 100% chance of 6-10 inches of new snow.  I don't know quite how to interpret all of this, but the map of the WV highway conditions scared me.  Route 19, which I have to travel, is dark yellow, which according to the legend reads "severe conditions".  The orange land that it goes through reads "chains required".

So, I'm waiting until tomorrow.  Hopefully I will solve our medical insurance problem today, and will accomplish something with all this waiting around.

Meanwhile, walking Jubilee in the deeper snow is a challenge.  The weatherman on TV says it's 15 inches.  Jubilee seems to think that there is something down under the snow that she needs to investigate, like mice or something.  Maybe there is.

But, tomorrow for sure!  At some point, I just have to jump.

Dad's video to Eric

art

John and I have different tendencies when it comes to art.  I like the contemporary stuff and he heads over to the Egyptians.  Either way, I find art both fascinating and fun.  I like to let it do its thing.  But it is best to go to a museum with someone else.  They always poke you to look at something that you would otherwise miss.

These are some of the things from the Carnegie Museum that I happened to take a picture of - and I'm not real sure why I took the photos.  Some of the things I looked at the longest, I didn't photo.

Carving on a whale vertabra

Snow Globe Style

The snow is now coming down, snow globe style.  It's about time.  I was beginning to think that I really should have left here yesterday.  I've been waiting for this winter storm to pass through.  It looks like it's finally here.  Now I just have to wait to get to the other side of it so that Jubilee and I can leave.

Rocks

 

I don't know if I've ever looked at, or thought about rocks as much as I did at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.  There is quite the display there.  You can read about the different kinds of rock (which I remembered from grade school) but they all look so different.  There's are laws of how they "twin" or crystal.  The rocks from different places are distinct, and yet the whole earth is just a big rock!

This being Pittsburgh, there's a lot about coal, and the levels and layers of rock underground.  Plants and animals that lived millions of years ago used the energy of the sun to build their bodies.  When they died, that ancient sunlight was stored in the carbon, hydrogen and carbon that is preserved in the rock.

I found myself wondering a lot about time past - and I suppose that is what museums are for - how what came before makes us who we are now, and is, in a way, still with us.