PATAGONIA DREAMING

摘要

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins -then McDivitt, always Kris-had not made many big life changes, so maybe it was time. On the Sunday before Christmas 21 years ago, she closed the door and turned the lock on her beach house in Ventura, Calif., a place right on the water where she and her surrogate family of work friends had hung out for 20 years. One gave her a lift to LAX, where she caught a flight to Santiago, Chile. There she boarded a second, smaller jet bound for Puerto Montt. After a 26-hour trip she arrived at the farmhouse of her future husband, Douglas Tompkins. He lived off the grid, without a phone, at the far end of the Renihue fjord, surrounded by thousands of acres of temperate rain forest. The nearest supermarket was two hours away. Kris had with her two large duffel bags, spoke only gringo Espanol, and had "a one-line resume," because, she adds with a quick laugh, "I'd only had one job my whole life."