In 1975, my parents traded the madness of Southern California for the open space of Lassen County – several hundred miles north – where they forged a new life for their six children at a special place we call 8M Ranch. Raised on their boundless energy and curiosity, I developed an insatiable appetite for the natural world, which led me to degrees in the geological sciences.
After graduation, it was purely instinct to scribble thoughts about distance, landscape, plants and animals, towns and people into a small three-ring notebook on the way to Alaska with my brother more than 40 summers ago. While he pounded nails, I knocked on doors with my resume and soon found myself plying the waters of the Bering Sea looking for signatures of oil under the ocean floor. Through calm and storm, I could hardly contain the thrill of it and quickly filled the notebook that became my first journal. I’ve been writing about my journey ever since.
I am a recently retired secondary science teacher from gigs in Samoa, Bolivia and northern Nevada, and now spend my days enjoying the outdoors, fixing fence, improving my Spanish, and attempting to capture my experience with words.
I am currently compiling a series of South American stories that I hope to publish by year’s end.
Michael Scott Meinert 