It was my wife, Bernice, who supplied the, "Oh, why not?"

In truth, Bernice was the adventurer of our family. To save the effort of adding up dates and ages, let me explain that she first showed her blind faith in happy endings when she became a child bride, at age sixteen of an unpromising youth just one year older.

I had spent the summer before working as a minor miner in Moab, Utah, then at the height of the great uranium rush. I worked with a crew of rough and ready older men, smoked and drank with older men, got punched in the nose a few times by older men —ie: an adventure. But truly not half as daring as Bernice's, willingly deciding what I did, and where I went, was fine with her, as long as she could come along.

My only promise in return was that she would not be bored. Whenever I heard her truthfully lament, "Not many women would put up with you," I only had to ask, "You bored?" to win the argument.

Trusting me, and chance, she soon found herself in England. I was a U.S. Air Force photographer and, shortly after joining, had volunteered for overseas duty in Japan. My orders came through for London. The real surprise was that many friends tried to talk me out of taking my wife along. This was our first lesson on ignoring the worriers in life.

Instead of having a rough time coping financially and culturally, we found ourselves overpaid by British standards. Everything from the best seats of first-run plays to nighttime courses at a quality art school was within our reach, and we took advantage of all there was offered. Vacations were spent knocking about Europe. Perhaps this experience is the reason we were able to isolate ourselves from the excitement of parties, clubs, and night life, for having experienced the sophisticated, we didn't feel anything was passing us by.

After discharge from the service, I started freelancing as a magazine photographer and writer. This meant that I occasionally worked as a printer, taxi cab driver, surveyor, carpenter, employment agency counselor, office boy, and advertising manager, to keep alive.

One major turning point in our family life was when I was asked, on account of my experience in Utah, another mining project in Montana, and my climbing and skiing background, if I wanted to spend a few weeks in the Alaska Range near Mt. McKinley, staking mining claims. It turned into a nine month long project, and I ended up running a crew of 27. We built a log cabin "camp" and an airstrip, for our only contact with "outside" was by light plane.