Where it all started.....

This is new to me. I have been looking for a platform to share my love of the outdoors and my family's travels with the world. 

     I am fortunate to have married a pilot  because although standby is a pain, and sometimes it takes you two or three extra legs to travel from point a to point b, it has allowed us to travel much more than we would have otherwise due to money and time restrictions. 

     I am also fortunate to have married someone who shares my love for forests, national parks, the outdoors, and travel in general - he is always up for a good road trip. 

     Our kids re great travelers, whether it is getting through airport security and living out of a carry on for a week, or long car trips, or living in a tent for a week - they are troopers. And we started them out early so they don't know any other way :)

This is where it all started for me : 

Zion National park. Growing up in the desert of southern Nevada, I was so excited when my parents would drive north with me to see pine trees and rivers and wow ! Sometimes snow ! Those are my greatest memories of childhood. It was even better when we HAD to drive through Zion to get to my grandma's house 😊 They took me to Bryce Canyon, Cedar Breaks, the Grand Canyon , and all of these left something in me that I wanted to pass on to my children. 

I have also been interested in wilderness medicine thanks to my best friend from nursing school, and at a conference I had the opportunity to hear Jim Whittaker speak, the founder of REI and the first american to climb Mount Everest. This man, in his 70's, still towers tall over most people, and has an undying love for the outdoors. It was from him I heard a phrase that I use today : he was talking about our education system, and the " no child left inside" programs. He the. Showed us statistics about kids with low performance and issues such as adhd, and when exposed to nature, green grass, trees, or some kind of natural environment for at least 30 minutes a day, their test scores improved and their behavior improved. He said their should not be a no child left behind program, but a " no child left inside" program. 

I couldn't agree more. 

That is why I want to share my experiences. In hopes that you can get outdoors and have some too. Even if you don't have kids. Everyone should get outdoors ! There is so much this earth has to offer... Sometimes in your own backyard ! 

Happy Travels, 

Jen