Lori and I were born and "raised" in the hills of eastern Oklahoma approximately 20 years apart. I am a "late blooming" research scientist -- late blooming for a variety of reasons -- personal, social, cultural, etc. Lori is an "older" student, having decided late to study astronomy, and therefore to begin her undergraduate education over again, as well as having suffered setbacks in graduate school and in her health.
I had lived and worked in Tucson for 11 years, raised my 4 children there, traveled extensively through the Four Corners area by car and have actually spent two 6 week periods (in two consecutive summers) teaching math (with my husband and younger son), grades 1-10, to Navajo teenagers at Navajo Community College in Tsaile, at the northeast end of Canyon de Chelly. During this period, both Steve (my husband) and I devoted a major part of our creative energies to the exploration of photography as a fine art form. We explored most of the backroads (and there are many) on the Navajo reservation. After our move to the east, we never found a focal point for our photography.
We were fortunate that our professions as astronomers took us to the southwest often. Usually we were able to spend our winter break there with some time for ourselves and our grandchildren -- all in Arizona and California.
But all this is just to explain the origin of my winter 1994 trip-- A Voyage to Another Universe.
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