America visit, end

To end this series I have a few photos from the plane which do not do justice to the North Cascade mountains but give you an idea if you've never been there.

I wanted to say what I miss about our visit. I miss my family, especially cuz I only saw them for minutes, not hours due to corona virus. Normally when I visit America, I have a good amount of time with everyone I love. Not this time. It as all about my sick dad and I gave up on my selfish idea of going on a boat ride because we were needed with him every day. I'm glad that my husband got to find 4 geocaches in the immediate vicinity of my dad's house! It was a lovely trail as shown in a previous entry.

I'm already missing Mexican food. But I really really miss the 5 hours of Star Trek every night (available, I never made it through all 5 hours!). Seriously they played an episode from each of the "classic" Star Treks every night, in the order of their release. It was amazing to watch *live* Star Trek and not from a disc. Because of the feeling of community, I'm not watching alone, there is somene else out there watching with me. My dad said, "I used to love that show." My reply, "Dad you got me into it."

I miss the horsepower of my sister's SUV that she loaned us. I do not miss the fact that it was the most temperamental car I've ever met. It corrects us for every little thing (getting too close to a lane line, the steering wheel vibrates as punishment, and if I get too close to another car, I get a big heads-up display in red "BRAKE!" Even worse than those, the car has a lane-change warning system and it was wrong much of the time, whether there was a car there or not, so this awful high pitched beeping was simply nerve wracking and not helpful.) Wonderful car, otherwise. 

I miss awsome customer service. Yesterday at Aldi I got scolded by the checker as if I was a child. She was so angry at me because I left a little space between my groceries and she didn't think the rest of that food was mine. She didn't let it go, she was so mad at me. In the end she thrust the receipt at me without a word.

I miss the smell of salt water.

Lightning fast Internet where pages load when I blink. (We called Telekom today cuz this is just ridiculous here.) 

I miss the feeling of being at ease in most conversations. Especially on the phone. I don't answer the phone in Germany, for the most part. In Shelton, I made up for years of that by making hundreds of phone calls regarding my dad's hospital care, and most of all, getting us covid testing. Also talking to my dad's friends and relatives, including my mom every day. I was called sweetie and honey by strangers and had people confused about my German last name, but it was great to just be at ease on the phone again. I got a little thrill every time I said my first name and didn't have to spell it!

The snow is finally melting. My horse has taken to licking both of us like we taste good. (That cannot be!) My bed is huge and comfortable and our house is not bloody hot. My beans and tomatoes survived, somehow, though tiny.

Right now an excavator is scraping the earth away from our house to expose our basement to waterproof it. I lost a lot of beloved plants: 2 rose bushes, an awesome wisteria, a lilac, cypress, almond tree, box bush, and a huge evergreen bush that was glorious but they just ripped them all out of the ground. It's a total mess here. And my ripped out plants are just lying on the snow. I don't think a dry basement is worth this loss. We'll see how it ends.

I'm watching Grey's Anatomy. It's not a good show. I miss Star Trek.