Since I can remember, I've felt that there was something "different" I was going to do with my life. Something other than the nine to five and the white picket fence. Something more meaningful, something more worthwhile...

I am presently twenty years old, and am a native of Pennsylvania, where I was born and raised until the fine age of seventeen. I began traveling after graduation from high school in Johnstown, PA during the summer of 1997. What I have accomplished and learned in the last three years is priceless. So I have not earned a college degree, broken any Olympic records, or found the cure for AIDS - but I have lived, learned, loved, and lost in quantum amounts. I have kissed the sky from the mountain tops, I watched the sun set over the desert, and fallen asleep to the beauty of the Aurora's dancing in the midnight sky. I have stood beneath waterfalls and felt the water thunder down upon my head, I have played with children and shared in their laughter, I have sat on porch swings in the company of the wise, and I have felt the multitudes of heartbeats beneath thousands of hugs. I have questioned everything - TWICE. I have watched death creep in and steal the breath of life away, cried a tempest full of tears, and stumbled only to learn how to walk all over again. I have wondered...and I am going to continue to do so!

I know some people have their doubts about my ability to actually do this, and I understand. It is not small potatoes, and although I am only going to be on the river a brief time - I will be with the crew of AYDE (Geoff, Nate, Woody, and Dave), in heart and spirit, for the entirety of the trip. Kayaking is not, in the least bit, my forté. Which is part of the reason I have decided to do this - I'll try anything once (twice if I like it)! If you can do something that you never fathomed you would do, if you can dedicate yourself to a cause that has a higher purpose, if you measure success in the form of accomplishment - and you are triumphant; then maybe it will instill hope in the hearts of those who have always wished and wanted to do the same. This is the reason why I have decided to be part of this expedition and share in this experience: To instill that very hope deep within the hearts of those who will be waiting to hear of my triumphant journey.

Life is about believing in yourself and your ability to accomplish great things, to your own measure. It's about desire, will, strength, courage, and perseverance. I believe that ANYONE can do ANYTHING, 'impossibility' is only a creation of the close-minded. All you need is faith...First there is a dream, then there's a belief and execution, and finally - there IS achievement, and you're GOLDEN!

"Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today." -James Dean