My love for teaching, languages, and the outdoors was fostered early on by my family. My father wrote trail guides and maintained lookouts. Both of my parents loved adventures and achieving goals. My father was also instrumental in the creation the North Cascades National Park resulting in being invited to the White House for the signing of the bill October 2, 1968. In addition, he founded the Skagit Alpine Club in 1960. My mother left her home in New York and came to see "faraway places". She never returned to the East Coast to live. My grandmother was a teacher and highly interested in Spanish since my grandfather had Mexican relatives. My second language was Spanish, and I went to live in Spain to become fluent. I met many people from other countries sparking my interest in learning more languages, and I basically taught myself German, Japanese, and a bit of French. I loved living in Spain, Germany, and Japan and hope one day to live in a French speaking country to improve my fluency in that language.
I was out in the mountains before I could walk and spent many hours every summer working in the lookouts with my parents. One time at Park Butte LO, we were caught in a lightning storm. I remember being terrified as my dad placed us on the insulated stool while lightning struck all around us. My dad's hair was standing straight up. I couldn't have been much more than four, It did not dim my love for lookouts, and I continue to be a steward by serving as Vice President for the Friends of Hidden Lake Lookout. I also try to get to as many lookouts and former lookout sites as possible. I hit 83 the summer of 2017. Additionally, I have visited lookouts in other states.
I ran my own meetup for several years but recently I am an assistant organizer for several of them =both social and outdoors. During that time, I have introduced many to backpacking and snowshoeing and even some to day hiking. It is a joy to spread my enthusiasm for trails and preserving them for the future. Most recently, I have begun leading and instructing for the Mountaineers. I write trip reports for WTA and NWHikers.net. One of my pictures was chosen for a WTA newsletter! It was such an honor.
Ideally, one day I would like to combine outdoor and international education into a paying job.