I began traveling at an early age.  First it was car trips from Urbana-Champaign, where I was born, to my grandparents' homes in Chicago and my uncle's home in Ohio.  We would also go on family camping trips, packing a tent and plenty of diapers in the family Plymouth station wagon.

At the age of three, we moved to Falls Church, Virginia after my father finished his PhD and began working for a defense think tank.  My uncle's family moved to California and our range expanded.  By the time I was 5, I had traveled coast-to-coast at least three times!

In 1965 I moved to Coranado, California, and lived adjacent to the North Island Naval Air Station.