I am from the Chicago area. I like to write about the area and my travels. Many of my pictures have their stories on my blog Mfairlady: mfairlady.com .

I was born and raised in the Chicago area the daughter of ballroom dancers who met at the Aragon Theater. My father, who grew up speaking German in his home, church, and place of work, performed a dance demo for Fred Astaire when he was in town looking to purchase a new studio.

Although I was not a dancer like my parents, after college my husband and I made the Chicago area our permanent residence. As we raised our children, a lot of our pastime has involved working alongside amateur fossil collectors that would play significant roles in the discovery and documentation of the Mazon Creek Fossils in Illinois. As time has opened up during and after raising our four children, I have researched and written on various subjects: genealogy, spirituality, archaeology, climbing, sea kayaking, an American Canoe Association’s Cover-up, the Deep Politics in Chicago , and most recently Gab CEO Andrew Torba’s Plans for Religious Supremacy .

For many years, my love for the outdoors and my ability to be able to spend more time in it, especially by sea kayak, opened up a greater interest in the environment and archaeology where I documented many of my travels as I was able to explore many untamed and unspoiled locations: Mississippi River, Coastal Maine, Georgia Coast, Sea of Cortez, Hawaii, Bermuda, and The Great Basin.

Our landscape not only contains a lot of undiscovered fossils, but Native American relics and art that continue to help us understand the past. Scientists and archaeologists are continuing to reexamine and discover new or previously ignored information today as we are able to protect cultural material before modern development destroys it: Watertrails Reveal Rich Archaeological History in the Midwest.