Less than two weeks from Christmas, and under two weeks since we returned from Patagonia, I'm sitting on the couch with the needles of our tree in my face---our tree perhaps a bit too overwhelming for our little apartment, but certainly joyful.  I thought coming home with less than a month before the holidays would leave me frazzled, but weirdly, here I am, with time to sit and write.

We have dreamed of traveling far south for more years than we've dreamed of another place, and at the end of November, and three flights later, we stepped off the plane into a world of aquamarine lakes, soft spring ground, and the gentle plod of horses in Argentina

I have never felt the expanse of nature so strongly as we did in the mountains at the end of the world. The wind blew so firmly I had to hide behind boulders not to get blown down.

That focus on the next step: on glacier ice and through fierce wildflower fields, up hills of thorny grass and back down through meadows of guanaco (llama)--it grounded us in every way, and the vacation calm that usually vaporizes upon arrival in JFK is still here.

We'll have post upon post of all the views after the holidays, but here's a just a little glimpse for now.

And a wish that the gentle coming of cold is not daunting for you this year, the peace of the season more prominent.