We lived in LA until I was about ten (as most of you know, we moved to Eureka, in Northern California, from Los Angeles) and the school I went to was a concrete jungle. It was basically two city blocks of asphalt with all the necessary equipment scattered around, enclosed in a 10' tall chain-link fence and no green space to be found. LA is basically desert (so really no wild animals to speak of). We would go to the beach frequently, but you never saw any animals out in the wild. Most of my animal experiences (outside of the usual dogs, cats, etc) occurred at the San Diego Zoo and Los Angeles Zoo.
When we moved north, we started to see wild animals in their natural habitat. On one of our exploration trips, before we officially moved, we saw a bear cub on the side of the highway! Deer were frequently spotted standing on the side of the road. And then we started at our new elementary school. It was on the edge of a forest, with a huge green field used for soccer and such. Deer used to come out of the forest during school hours and munch on the grass field. It was amazing; I would stop and watch every time it happened and could not figure out why my classmates were not similarly amazed. My junior high and high school were the same basic setup; on the edge of the forests with huge green fields that deer would come out and munch on. My behavior remained the same; I would stop and watch the animals in their natural habitats and just be fascinated.
To this day I love to see animals in nature. I love seeing a deer wander out of the woods and start nibbling on the grass. I could watch dolphins breaking out of the waves at the beach for hours (and do every year at the Beach House). Nature fascinates me, and I am endlessly intrigued by the interactions that I am able to have with it.
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