It was mid-October, the Fall Break of my sophomore year at Duke, and I spent the weekend visiting Asheville and camping in Pisgah National Forest. I immediately fell in love with the city and the mountains and forests that surround it, and I knew that I would eventually have to make Asheville my home. Through the Stanback internship program and Dogwood Alliance, I had the lucky opportunity to do so this summer—while protecting some of the very trees that brought me here in the first place.