how I know I live in the best place for me🇺🇸
My trip is drawing to an end😩
And while I don’t want it to end, I’m also excited to be going Home. Undeniably, I’ve attained some deep levels of gratitude for all of the greatness that exists in my life in Houston. I have a list of some of the wonderful things about America that I particularly missed while I was gone, and these wonderful things also allow me to know that I live in the best place. Not being elitist, I’m recognizing that for me, the U.S. is the best place to live, while there are many great places that I like to visit.😊
- Thanksgiving and Christmas at Home
- NFL
- NPR
- Whole foods, HEB, Kroger, Trader Joe’s (and any other good grocery store)
- Starbucks
- NY Times
- Safe drinking water – everywhere
- Hot water in the shower
- Every bathroom has a toilet (never a hole in the ground)
- Melting Pot – everyone is different, so no one looks ‘different’😄
- Wear whatever you want / go wherever you want / do whatever you want, as a woman
- Not having people cut in front of me in line, for no particular reason
- Smiling and greeting passers-by
- Being on time
- Fashion
- Swimming pools in backyards
- 50 unique, interesting states
- Taxi regulations
- Reliable, present law enforcement
- Anthropologie
- Crate & Barrel
- Bath & Body Works
- Victoria’s Secret
- American music
- A less-low glass ceiling than in most of the rest of the world
- Clean streets and roads, and the ability to Recycle
- Shaking hands as a greeting
- Not being asked my age or political opinions by strangers
- The Great American Road Trip
- The Great American Novel
- The Greatest Generation
- Our Patriotism
- Seeing symbols of the American flag
- Get whatever you want, whenever you want it
- XM radio
- Less smoking
- Clothes dryers!
- Real coffee available everywhere
Torres del Paine, Patagonia
Love❤️
Even though it’s freezing cold (wintertime, at the bottom of the world, I guess it would be!) From Santiago (which is in the middle of Chile, north to south, it is over a three hour flight from Punta Arenas! Punta Arenas is the southernmost city in the world. From there, I stayed one night, and I had to take buses back north, to Puerto Natales, and then into Torres del Paine National Park. The buses were another full day of travel. Not easy to get to, but totally worth it. I was staying at a hotel inside the park, on Lake Pehoe (pronounced: pay-way). I should’ve rented a car because I didn’t get to see much of the park. Because it’s out of season, all of the tour operators are closed. So, I decided to do two different hikes that I could walk to from the hotel. One was called “Mirador Los Cuernos”, which included an impressive waterfall, and the other I can’t remember – it was something like “Condor’s Nest”. I will simply put post pictures – what a remarkable place☺️
view from plane, to Punta Arenas
moving hundreds of cows to..?
patagonia cows – the same as other cows, only colder
bagualero!
this road is called “ruta del fin del mundo” = “route to the end of the world”
guanaco
view of lake pehoe from my room
view of mountains from hotel restaurant
🙂
cuernos del paine mountains: view from hotel
pano from bridge to hotel
shore
the bridge to the hotel, which is in on an island on the Lake Pehoe
partial granite
beautiful
from the road
🙂
torres del paine
🙂
lake pano
lake pano 2
nice walk
fog!
couldn’t see anything
creepy mountain making itself known
so creepy
beach sand
crested caracara
Next up: Tierra del Fuego (almost Antarctica😂)
wordsmakesentences 
What you’re saying