I spent years studying the Earth's history, hiking to remote outcrops, and getting unreasonably excited about highway roadcuts. There's nothing quite like picking up a rock off Mount Olympus that was once part of an ancient seafloor.

My journey started in high school, where I was fortunate enough to have an Earth Science teacher who encouraged me to lean into this new-found passion. This curiosity and enthusiasm to understand the forces that literally move mountains led to two degrees in two different states and, most fortunately, to find my future husband and lifelong geology partner.

These days, I channel that same curiosity into different pursuits, but the rock collection keeps growing. No road trip through the Rockies is complete without taking turns reading from the Roadside Geology of Colorado handbook. The subject matter has changed, but the approach is the same: break complex systems into understandable parts and explain them, often at length, to anyone within earshot.