I know Melissa through my buddy Rick Tarbill. Rick is a fellow fan of spending time in tinyboats did a tinyboatsession at the very start of Season One. He and Melissa know each other from growing up in Washington. Melissa was a history student of Rick’s history teaching father and it turned into a family friendship. She went out and became a doctor of rocks (geologist) and teaches at a college in Las Vegas. Though she is a fan of rock formations from the nifty to the downright fascinating, her passion is geologically much younger. It concerns the development of an upstart primate that evolved recently. This clever critter is quite confounding. Possessed within it are multitudes of contradictory qualities that will be the critter’s undoing or salvation as it navigates the fearful privilege of having the divine capacity to impact its environment to its glory, or its peril. The jury is still out as to the fate of this critter. Melissa teaches the overlapping complexities of this critter’s impact on its environment. The fate of any species is heavy stuff and so she plays music and spends time outside. Her particularly usual watery haunts are the mighty Colorado River. When she was back up visiting friends and family in the summer, we went for a row out in the San Juan Islands. She brought a tiny guitar (A bit bigger than a ukulele) and in-between some most excellent lessons on the glacial formation of the San Juan islands she sang amazing songs in sunshine and fog. -Jordan and Clarabelle