The author was recently asked to reflect on her "educational journey." As far as she can remember she has been hungry to learn. A friend once described her as having "hambres atrasadas," which he described as a kind of "hunger nipping at her heels." It goes back, of course, to her parents: Her father's and her early journeys scavenging the Wyoming badlands for fossils, arrowheads, and agates and the stories that accompanied them. The author was a geologist at the age of four, gathering the most mundane rocks and pebbles to carry home to the garage where she would place them just so on the concrete, then deliver a blow of her hammer that would crack them wide open. At five, she was an anthropologist studying tipi rings and Medicine Wheels tucked away in the Wyoming badlands. Then her mother, a fourth grade teacher, took over. She brought home workbooks, flash cards, and "gold stars". The author relates that it took her many years to discover the true value of teaching. In this article, she relates the events in her life that led her to become a teacher.