I live in the suburbs of Seattle with my husband. I love traveling, photography, hiking, cooking and hunting for wildflowers.
I developed my passion for travel when my parents took a vacation and drove down Hwy 1 in California. I was hooked. After I married, we took several road trips in the western US and Canada before taking the leap overseas to London.
Many of our trips involve our hobbies of hiking, photography, wildflowers and gardening. Our first international trip was to England to visit the gardens of Wales. We have also made trips to New Zealand, Spain, France and returned to England to visit gardens.
We love to hike. One of our favorite places is Mt. Rainier and my husband climbed it for his 50th birthday. The next year we climbed Mt. Whitney to celebrate my 50th. We try to include hiking in our travels. We have hiked the Maritime Alps of France, the Dolomites of Italy, along the Routeburn and Abel Tasman tracks in New Zealand and craggy spires of Patagonia in Chile. We have also kayaked in Mexico, snorkeled in in Hawaii and Belize and climbed the Mayan ruins of Yucatan and Guatemala.
Our best trip was an anniversary trip to South Africa and Namibia where we searched for spring wildflower on the veld and wild animals in Namibia. We have also spent our vacations visiting the different areas of the Mediterranean biome (Southern Europe, California, Chile, South Africa and Western Australia) to study flora and wildflowers.
I've also had the opportunity to live and work in Europe - another dream come true. I worked for three months in the Netherlands in 1990 and again for 6 weeks in 1996. We learned how to shop, use the appliances, live without a car and open our minds to other cultures. In 2007, I studied for 4 weeks at an intensive French language school in Villefranche sur Mer - Institut de Francais.
We have also traveled to more diverse locals. In 2009, we spent two weeks in Borneo - East Malaysia. In 2011, we spent two weeks in Western Turkey exploring Istanbul and the Aegean ruins. We have also visited the tropical US with several trips to Hawaii.
Updated: Jan 2, 2012.