Favorite Places in the U.S.

Growing up, I have always been dragged from state to state every Christmas and/or Thanksgiving.  Both my parents are from the south, so pretty much that's all I know of America.  I have grown to love the northern sticks of Mississippi, and also Huntsville, Alabama (where [part of] NASA is located, and also where the first McDonald's sit down restaurant is), although my grandparents only lived there a short time of my childhood. 

 One of the greatest things I love about the quaint little towns in the sticks of Mississippi is that it's basically made up of about ten different fairly large families, with the whole distant cousins and fifth aunts twice removed stuff.  To be honest, I don't really think anyone knows how they're related, they just know that they are related.  Because everyone knows each other, it's quite amusing to see how much of the stereotypical "family drama" is true (ex: an uncle on his fifth wife, a cousin running off with some random guy, multiple divorces, a specific family member having to clean up all the messes repeatedly, you get the picture [note: none of these pertain to any of my family members :D]). 

Another place that I absolutely love that is not in the south is Colorado.  As I have said before in a previous blog,  the Rockies are absolutely beautiful.  They are so shockingly amazing that the first time I saw them, all I could do was just stare at them with my mouth open  for about ten minutes ( I was getting a cramp in my neck).  If any of y'all ever get a chance to go to Colorado, you have to go to Crested Butte.  Crested Butte is a pretty famous town, what my father would refer to as a "tourist trap", but hey, it's pretty dang amazing.  Crested Butte is located at the bottom of this HUGE mountain, and I can't even begin to describe how amazing it is to look around and all of a sudden see this ginormous beautiful thing looking down at you.

So yeah...the Rockies rock my world. (haha. bad pun)

So for all y'all Australian  and Korean people, if you ever get to come to America, go to the Rockies or the sticks (also the Appalachians, but you might get carsick because it's so windy).  Personally, I would go to the Rockies because you kinda have to have a family in the sticks to fully understand the whole "family affairs" thing :).  So...yea.  Those are my favorite places in the U.S....and this is the end of my blog.  Until next time.... 

Terrorist Attacks in the United States

There have been multiple terrorist attacks in the United States in the past years, one of the most devastating and well known being September 11, 2001.  So many people died that day, but so many more have died from terrorist attacks in general.  One of the saddest parts though, is that our nation seems to be able to unite under major circumstances like terrorist attacks while we aren't able to unite when nothing is wrong.  As a citizen of this nation,  I think we should have the ability to be united no matter what, and not just because something bad has happened. 

Terrorism has also caused trust issues with our border countries.  After September 11th, an anti-drug  organization formed by American citizens and Mexican citizens stopped meeting at the border like they usually did and had to start meeting in different cities, alternating countries each year.  I think that it's sad that America can't even trust it's own neighbors, and it's amazing to see how much fear we have for ourselves because of terrorists.  We lock ourselves in our country, trying to keep out the bad people and possible nightmares, but that just makes things like legal border crossing and transcontinental flights harder for Americans.  Americans are even afraid of ourselves, with all the new high-tech security that was  not needed fifty years ago.  

Terrorism, overall has both improved technology and created trust issues for the United States.  Personally, I'd rather try to keep those trust bonds between other countries then have to improve and create new technology just to defend myself from my own kind.