First time outside in a week and the world felt louder than I remembered. Snow still everywhere, piled and packed and sparkling under a painfully blue sky. I had cabin fever bad enough that even just a little pop outside felt like a field trip.

We grabbed breakfast bagels and instead of heading straight home, parked and let the car idle. The food was still warm in my hands, steam fighting the cold, and the mountains just sat there in the distance like they always do, patient and unconcerned. There is something grounding about eating quietly while looking at them, like they are reminding you that time keeps moving even when you have been snowed in and stuck inside your own head.

The parking lot was a mess of plowed snow and sculpted ice. Big chunks tossed aside by machines, frozen into accidental monuments. It was beautiful in that blunt, unpolished way winter does best. Clean but not gentle. (Not even that clean if you look at the parking lots and streets
)

One building had a massive icicle hanging off the roof, long and sharp and honestly a little terrifying. The kind of thing that makes you instinctively drive faster away from it. A reminder that winter does not care about liability or signage. It just hangs there, waiting, daring gravity to do its thing.

We sat longer than planned, hands warming around breakfast, watching sunlight bounce off snow and windows. After a week inside, it felt good just to exist out there again. No agenda, no rush, just bagels, mountains, and the quiet understanding that the world was still here, icy and dangerous and beautiful, waiting for us to step back into it.

#Roanokeva #winterweather #icicle