"Me and my mom and dad, we're all huge fans of going to visit lighthouses. It started off when I was 5. We were going on a vacation to Cape May in New Jersey. They have a lighthouse there. My parents thought it might be a good idea to climb it and for whatever reason it clicked with me. After that, my parents found that they could get me to sit through any car ride however long if there was a lighthouse at the end. So we started going through the ones in New Jersey. It kind of just ballooned out from there. Whenever we visited my grandparents down in Georgia, we threw in a lighthouse trip near Savannah—then Florida. When I was 10, we went on a road trip out to the West Coast, started in Southern California and took three weeks to ride up the coast just visiting lighthouses. There was one close to Olympia National Park, situated at the end of this long sandy spit of land—a 5-mile hike out and back. I didn't complain at all—10-year-old me who hated any form of exercise. These lighthouses are monuments to history and an era that's bygone but still relevant to us today. I think just learning about the stories associated with these places is one thing that’s really resonated with me…Another thing that makes this hobby really persistent for me is it's a way for me to connect with my parents. We've literally gone to the obscure corners of America because you find these lighthouses in the most interesting places. The Saint George Reef lighthouse is in the very tip of Northern California, close to the Redwood forests. It’s only accessible via helicopter since it's about 5 miles off the coast on this escarpment of rock that you can't land a boat on. So we get loaded into this decommissioned military helicopter and set out across the ocean and land on this narrow landing pad. It takes skill and dexterity for the pilots. And then we go up to the very top and when I'm standing there at the gallery, looking out to the horizon, it feels like I am literally on the edge of the Earth. There's nothing as far as the eye can see except waves pounding below me, the horizon. It's just a very cool feeling, kind of like piece like you're away from the troubles of the world."