I grew up in Washington, DC.  I never did like the city.  I spent all my childhood in the woods by the elementary school or down near the canal around Palisades Park.  My Dad was a Boy Scout leader for many many years and I got to go with him on many trips.  My first backpack, that I remember, was in the Sheanandoa Park along the Appalachian Trail;  I was nine and at Girl Scout Camp.  I had my 10th Birthday while on the Trail and the others made me a cake over the fire.  We all carried about 24 lbs.  and hiked 24 miles in 3 days.  I still have the scar on my finger from my knife while trying to make a fuzz stick to start a fire.  When I married and moved out to Albuquerque, New Mexico with my husband, I continued to backpack and added spelunking to it when we joined the Sandia Grotto at the University.  All we needed was combat boots (work boots) food, and enough money for Gas for the Dodge powerwagon and off we'd go.  I even got to help put up the gate at Fort Stanton Cave in southern NM.  I helped with a Brownie and Junior Girl Scout troup and was leader of a Cadet Troup at the same time.  I tried to instill "low impact" camping and "leave no trace".  We would clean up our campsite and then kick leaves and sticks around and try and hide the fact we had been there.  One time while on a cookout with a Junior and Brownie group, the young girls were up in the woods bringing in wood for the fire and several of them came out of the woods all excited.  I told them we needed to get the fire going as we only had so much time up there. One little girl came up to me and said "but we found all this trash up over there (as she pointed to a hillside), and we need to get it out so it can be pretty again".  I about cried. 

The parents showed up and I saw one little girl pick up a piece of paper her mother had thrown down and Heard  her tell her shouldn't throw trash on the ground.  What I had been teaching and showing the girls was working. 

 I have been taking pictures since I was 11 years old.  i had a little Brownie camera.  Once in NM, I got a better camera and continued honing my skills as a photographer.  I now have a couple Nikon Digital cameras and a photography business.           I have been a nurse since 1990.  I have crosscountry skied many times with backpack up to the yurts North of Chama, NM.

I continue to backpack with my dogs and ride my horse all around NM.  A  camera goes with me wherever I go.  Photography takes away the stress of nursing.  I can get home from work, head out with my sister and after 15 minutes of shooting, my stress of the night is totally gone.  I get rejuvenated by the experience.  When I add backpacking to this experience, I am doubly blessed.