Like most small hometowns, the beauty of the environment are often lost on people who grow up there; so focused are we on quickly graduating high school so that we can move somewhere more “interesting”. Until moving to New York City from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, I had hardly took note of the frequent encounters with wildlife (mostly deer and snakes, but one time a mountain lion) or that my best friend was a Shoshone Native American or how, at that elevation, we could be buried in snow for a couple weeks and lake swimming just a few months later.  Read More