Almost Heaven

West Virginia!  I'm hundreds of miles from where the scooter is parked under my deck, in Morgantown, West Virginia for Memorial Day Weekend.  Along with celebrating the sacrifices of men and women throughout our country's history who have made and kept safe this wonderful home of ours, I'm reveling in the knowledge that after I get back to work on Thursday there will be only 10 more days of work left for this academic year.

Can you see (and smell, and taste, and hear, and feel) the joy of the anticipated freedom on my face?  I am quite the experienced porch sitter, and, as you can see here, I can keep up a good rattan furniture sit with the best of them.  Having saved two of my four annual personal days so I could lengthen this weekend, I'm totally enjoying this extended preview of what's coming in just a few weeks.

Although there are parts of Pennsylvania that I'm intimately familiar with that are built on hills and mountains, it's different here in West Virginia.  Entire neighborhoods, it seems, are built on the sides of what I certainly would have called mountains as a kid.  I'm not sure what they really are - too high to be hills, but perhaps, too short to be mountains, but there are a number of places here that make me think of the Grinch high atop Mt. Crumpet.  Riding the scooter here would be a delight with inclined and declined twisties to delight the spirit.

Pizza Al's is somebody's (not my) favorite pizza and no trip worth its salt (and oregano, and crushed red pepper, and grated Parmesan) here is complete without at least one meal taken there.  As I always say, it's very good pizza, but nothing I'd write home about.  The ambience is kind of like the sterile environment of an operating room and items contributing to the decor are sparse and simple.  Thus, one needs to provide entertainment to his table for all to enjoy the passage of time while waiting for the pizza to be ready.

Tomorrow, it's off to visit some dear folks in Somerset, Pennsylvania with a jaunt to Pittsburgh planned for later in the day, and on Wednesday I'll be back in the Wyoming Valley.  When I get back I'll have only Thursday and half of Friday to work before the final two frenzied weeks of packing away the classroom and saying goodbye.  I can't wait for that first celebratory ride of summer vacation, as if you could have missed that.