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She attributes her vivid imagination to her early childhood. Her single working mother read to her at night. Her grandmother took her for long nature walks through the Maryland and New Hampshire woods on lazy summer afternoons. It was there that she learned to see and hear the nature around her. Her grandmother taught her the names of the plants, trees, birds and animals. She learned how to identify edible plants. The entire family raised Monarch butterflies every summer. As a child Ms. Franz spent hours on her own in the wooded land near her family's home, floating down the brook on an inner tube, building tree forts and picking wildflowers. As a young teen she spent her summers near Wolfeboro, New Hampshire at Camp Deer Run with activities such as sailing, tennis, riflery, archery, outdoor survival skills, water skiing, canoeing, mountain hiking, Capture the Flag, drama, singing, art, long distance swimming and nature lore. After the end of her first marriage of thirteen years she decided that the best way to pick up the pieces was to get a passport and use it every year. She has since traveled to places such as: Uzbekistan, Russia, Greece, China, Costa Rica, Bora-bora, Antigua, Hawaii, the Caribbean, Korea, Philippians, Canada, Europe, Unite Kingdom, Scandinavia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Argentina and the all of the United States. Believing
that travel broadens the mind and that experience is the best
teacher…she has skied the alps, most of the US, shussed
the headwall at Mt. Washington and skied glaciers in Innsbruck.
She has climbed the Great Wall of China, the Leaning Tower of
Pisa, the Eiffel Tower, the Sun and Moon Pyramids, several Mayan
ruins and the seven falls of Hana, Maui. She's been to the world's
largest telescope at Arecebo. She has punted the Thames, taken
a gondola across the Grand Canal of Venice, toured the Seine,
and cruised the waterways of Helsinki, Amsterdam, Copenhagen,
Stockholm and the Norwegian fjords. |