While surfing in California some years back I noticted that a distraught father had swam deep into the Pacific Ocean surf after his two sons, and was now himself in trouble. Using my surfboard, I (Mike) gave him something to hold onto and paddled us back to shore. In the end, all three made it OK. Kathy saw Haley's Comet in Australia from an island on the Great Barrier reef, when the full moon went into eclipse and the comet blazed in the suddenly and unexpectedly dark night sky.

Mike is familiar with pollutants in the San Francisco Estuary; he has worked for a non-profit that monitors pollutants in animals, water, and sediiments for the past 15 years. Kathy is an environmental educator, and she currently coordinates a garden tour that encourages people to consider gardening with native plants. In 1997 she received the National Wetlands Award, and in the fall of 2007 she will receive the National Wildlife Federation's Conservation Award for Education.

Hiking, backpacking, international travel (Indonesia, Holland and Italy as a couple, many more countries for Kathy, who spent 3 years between Australia and New Zealand, and 3 more years in the Caribbean), US travel, local and regional history, gardening with native plants, family history research, biking, motorcycling, Macs.