When I was a little girl, my dad used to take my brother and I camping in the Appalachian Mountains. We lived in West Virginia in those days. It was a wild state and beautiful country full of narrow winding back roads. No one really knew those country roads as well as my father. Or at least, it seemed that way to me. Dad worked as a lawyer for Alleghany Land & Mineral. I think he had a pretty tight relationship with his boss and the job afforded him time to travel those mountain roads to survey the companies land holdings. I don’t know too many specifics because I was just a wee one no older than 7 or 8 years. But I remember the camping and road trips featured time with dad to an advantage. I felt like he was in his element in those mountains and it was a pleasure for him to watch us discover. We didn’t do to often but those memories stand out as being a very important part of my formative years. It was those experiences that established my relationship with nature.

Last summer I took an Indian guided tour of a Hopi Reservation and Cliff Dwelling near Kykotsmovi, AZ. I was camping my way across the southwestern portion of the United States accompanied by a friend and my small dog, Ronan. A couple of weeks before leaving on this road trip, a friend told me of his amazing experience touring Walpi Cliff Dwellings in First Mesa; I also remember the European travelers at the International Youth Hostel outside of the Grand Canyon praising their Indian Reservation experiences as being among the most magical of their lives. I was prepared for an enchanting experience among the ancestors of the first Americans, who could show me a more balanced and symbiotic relationship with the world they inhabited.