Mrs. Hersam has lived in Illinois her whole life, but she feels very connected to the world beyond Lake Forest. Mrs. Hersam has a love for traveling, and it started when her family would go on long camping trips to national parks and mountain ranges such as: the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and the Canadian Rockies.
“I can still picture my family’s burnt orange Volkswagen poptop camper. The six of us would squeeze in to drive from Illinois to California or Florida. My parents always urged me to look out the window, but I wanted to read my book,” Hersam said.
During all her traveling, she recognized that reading sparked her imagination.
“Looking out our car window at a meadow of wild flowers, I felt like I’d envisioned the scene while reading a fantasy novel. I couldn’t believe that my reality and my book world were coming together,” she said.
Eventually in college, she continued her passion for travel, and took several backpacking trips with friends in Europe, learning about navigating trains, buses and subways.
“I remember feeling like an explorer even though I knew so many people had already visited Notre Dame or the Eiffel Tower,” Hersam said.
Mrs. Hersam’s husband, whom she met in high school, also grew up camping with his family. He proposed to her on a backpacking trip in Isle Royale National Park, an island in the middle of Lake Superior.
“He proposed to me on the top of a fire tower miles away from anyone else,” she said.
After their wedding, the couple did a week long backpacking trip in Alaska, camping alongside wildlife.
Furthermore, Mrs. Hersam has incorporated hiking into her own family trips. She’s explored countries such as Norway and Switzerland, and even brought her one-year-old daughter on an expedition to “hike” in a backpack. In turn, her daughters now love heading off on trail adventures, even if it’s just the Fort Sheridan path with their mom.
On one such excursion, Mrs. Hersam and her family crossed a stream that was actually a raging river after a storm.
“I never feel like a hike is a risk until nature shows how wild it can be,” she said.
In addition to the thrill and adventure of traveling the world, literature has been an outlet to explore different cultures. Mrs. Hersam enjoys reading books by authors from the countries she has traveled to. She reads about a country’s history and culture before leaving her vacation and usually takes a book home written by someone from where she just visited.
As she hits a milestone of twenty-five years teaching at LFHS, she will continue incorporating elements of literature and travel inside the classroom. She’s optimistic that through her lessons, some of her students will be inspired to go backpacking or camping, and hopefully bring a book along.
“Hiking has allowed me to realize the natural beauty throughout our world, so perfect and vast. Just by getting on a trail, you can distance yourself from other tourists and get a real sense of escape and freedom,” Hersam said. “I hope, as a world, we can decide these precious national parks are worth saving.”
