It probably won't do to quote the Grateful Dead on the editorial page of an association devoted to the study and experiencing of life in pre-1840 America, but "What a long strange trip it's been." There, I did it. Maybe not period correct but certainly appropriate.
I got the idea for the AHLHA while sitting in a lawyer's office. In the middle of a very acrimonious divorce I wanted nothing more than to run and hide. And what better a place to hide that over two hundred years in the past? I suppose that starting an organization of like-minded souls that could share their love of American history and the outdoors seemed like pretty idyllic. Yet there, on the third floor of a glass box in Burlingame, California, the seed was planted that would eventually grow into AHLHA.