September 2019: Steve had spent his spring in Chile, and by that fall he had just finished leading his third trail crew of the year with the Student Conservation Association (SCA), traveling across California, Alaska, and Yellowstone. He found out about an opportunity for a fall 'leader crew' - a short-term trail crew the SCA hires in the shoulder season, made up of other SCA leaders or people who had previously worked for the SCA. His initial offer was to go back to Alaska for the leader crew, which he was pretty excited about. But when it fell through and he was offered a crew in Minnesota instead, he was even more excited to return to Voyageurs National Park where he had led a crew in 2016. He visited his grandparents in Elyria, Ohio, and then drove up to International Falls, Minnesota. Katie was living in Flagstaff, Arizona, and had spent the summer planning for fall fieldwork in southern New Mexico as a field biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey. However, the heat of the Las Cruces sun had other plans, and scorched the plants that were growing for the project, leaving her itching for a fall adventure. Having worked for the SCA a number of seasons in the past, she contacted the managers in charge of leader crews, and learned that a position was available for the crew in Voyageurs! Northern Minnesota was a place she hadn't been yet, despite living in Wisconsin for five years. She went to visit her parents in Oberlin, Ohio for Labor Day weekend and then flew up to the north country. When he picked up Katie and another crew member from the International Falls airport (late, it should be noted), Steven mentioned that he had just driven up from northeast Ohio himself. Katie responded with an Elaine Benes-esque "GET OUT!" at the improbable proximity of their families, and the findings of similarities had begun. They were both from Ohio, almost exactly the same age, had backgrounds in ecology, a love for trees and trail crews, and had even both been at the same SCA Leader Training session in 2016 but hadn't crossed paths. As the first two weeks of the crew went on, they enjoyed playing card games and making apple crumble in the camp oven with the whole crew, but mainly clicked with each other. By the end of the month, it was fairly obvious to everyone on the crew, whoops! Katie had made plans for a bus-based trip through the Midwest after the crew to visit friends before flying back to Flagstaff. Steven was ready for his next adventure, but wasn't sure where it would be yet, with Ohio as the next stop to gather gear from his grandparents. So he offered to drive with her to the stops she had planned, all the way to Chicago - a 600-mile trip. Having just spent three weeks camping together and spending every day working together, a road trip felt pretty natural to them both. They saw the start of the Mississippi River, ate EPIC poutine, and bought pull-tabs at bars, while visiting Steven's friends in Duluth and Katie's in Minneapolis and Madison along the way. Throughout the month together, Katie had mentioned that Flagstaff was a pretty cool place to live, but at no point (she swears!!) tried to persuade Steven to move there. After a couple weeks back in Flag for Katie, and a visit with friends in Cincinnati for Steven, they decided it might be fun for him to come out to Flagstaff, just in case he liked it. It turned out to be a pretty fun place to live, and they got along even better back in the real world. Plus, meeting in the close quarters of a trail crew made them pretty well equipped for the COVID lockdown that started a few months later. After living together for a few years in Flagstaff, they decided to move to Olympia, Washington together, and have loved exploring their new home turf there, especially the Enchantment Lakes in the Cascades, where they got engaged in July of 2023. They can't wait to take the next step together and celebrate with you in Ohio!

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