Travels With Mike (Mike Chmielewski)

I'm sitting here at Arizona State University happy that I finally have some decent internet time and I can start this page off.  I figure the best way to do this is to give everyone a little background about who I am and what I'm doing (don't worry I'll try to keep it short).

I'm a 25 year old, who recently graduated with a B.S. in psychology and is attempting to get into graduate school, so I can go into academia and have my summers off for backpacking, traveling, and of course geocaching (among other more realistic reasons).

   
  I've always been a fan of the outdoors.  I grew up on an small farm (my grandfather's who besides working in a shop, did a little farming on the side old world style) with 12 acres of woods and two fields.  I used to accompany my grandfather on mushroom hunts and walks into the woods.  In addition, my family used to car camp quite often when I was younger.  Even in my teens when the farm ceased to exist (except for the honey bees which my grandfather and I now raise), and the neighborhood became the suburbs my little patch of woods still existed.  It was in those teen years that my father, my younger brother, and I also got into Mountain Biking which was my introduction to spending the better part of a day on the trail.  During the late high school and early college years I'd have 10-15 people over for campfires back in the woods, instead of going to large obnoxious parties.  I also started day hiking around the same time.  So the forest and nature have always seemed like home to me.