I was born in Dayton, Ohio. I moved eight years later to live in Florida’s sunny, warm paradise. Ten years later I graduated from Merritt Island High School. Four Years after that I graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. I’ve worked as a hostess, waitress, smoothie maker, veterinarian assistant, ocean lifeguard, librarian, Professor’s research assistant, an intern at Sea World with orca whales, college yoga instructor’s assistant and house sitter. I’ve volunteered with Brethren Disaster Response helping clean up from the hurricane Katrina aftermath and in Glenco, Ohio helping rebuild homes from a flood. I’ve also volunteered at an environmental non-profit in San Francisco.  While on the west coast I missed Florida’s warmth and the Atlantic Ocean, so I moved back to Merritt Island and began teaching yoga and started a small animal care business, Sunrise Pet Care. The fall of 2007 I hiked on the Appalachian Trail for three months from Connecticut to Maine. I currently am writing a novel and learning how to surf.

I enjoy the ocean, springs, trails, stars, dolphins, birds, alligators, and all that Florida has to offer. There is so much diversity here that just a drive from the east coast on state road 50 to the west coast will awe and inspire. I think the state of Florida has the potential to captivate a huge audience of outdoorsmen if they open their backdoor and promote it. However, there has become a trend in the way Florida is developing and there won’t be much of the ‘natural backyard’ of Florida left and so I’d like to see it, its animals and ecosystems before they are all developed. Besides, it would be a shame to have to start golfing at such a young age.

On the 29th of April, 2007, I learned to walk.  A little late perhaps, as I was 21 at the time, but as they say, better late than never.  I was on top of a mountain in Northern Georgia, at the start of the Appalachian Trail.  And so, like a child, I swayed back and forth, between the comfort of what I already knew, and the curiousity and determination that made me want to move forward.  As I took that first step, a new world revealed itself to me. A world that stretched from the dusty, clay footpath in front of me to the distant mountaintop of the revered Katahdin.  And many months later, when I finally reached that spot of earth on the top of Katahdin, it was a crystal clear day.  It was one of those rare days when you can see past the horizon, deep into your own soul.  I knew then that I had learned more than how to walk.  I had learned how to live.  I have taken that knowledge back to my homestate of Florida, the state I have grown up in.  I have spent my youth catching bluegill and smallmouth bass in pasture-side lakes; I’ve camped under the swaying pines next to a crackling fire of pine cones and oak.  I’ve picked wild low-bush blueberries, and seen the elusive bobcats.  I remember the red fox, sleek and alert, roaming in the shadows.  For me, this journey will be a plunge into the pool of memories of my childhood.  The Florida I remember.  The Florida I have never met.  And the Florida I want more people to meet.