These [California] cards are so beautiful that I almost don't want to mail them to anyone else! Thanks so much.

- bfoster, etsy.com California Postcards on Etsy

Alden Olmsted's film My Father, Who Art in Nature receives standing ovation at Wild and Scenic Film Festival https://lightcapfarm.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/alden-olmsted-receives-standing-ovation-for-my-father-who-art-in-nature/

I just wanted to let you know how much our boss LOVED the map that you created. She was so touched and could not stop staring at it, looking for the places she knows. Also, I cannot recall if I said this but when our team took a look at the map prior to giving it to our boss, we were all so impressed and thrilled. It looks awesome!

Thank you so much for working with me (us) to create that wonderfully personal, custom map! The map and my boss' reaction were better than we had hoped for.

- Rosemary K

I was born in a small town (cue opening music) in Northern California. While my Muir-inspired father John D. Olmsted was off stopping bulldozers and saving state parks - like Jug Handle State Natural Reserve in Mendocino, and building wheelchair trails out of old mining ditches - like the Independence Trail in Nevada City - my history-major mother was teaching my brother and I about California history and driving the neighborhood after dark.. looking for her youngest son.

I made it one and a half semesters through college, dropping out to start a bmx bicycle company at age 19. Summer camp employment in the Santa Cruz Mountains, missions trips to Mexicali, screen printing classes and a different car nearly every year, my twenties were a wide mix of almost-successes and lots of lessons learned.

In 1999 I made a simple but important journey - saving up and flying to Indiana to purchase a 1966 Chrysler convertible. I knew I needed to buckle down and get my life together, but I also realized I needed to enjoy the present, and the convertible was the perfect choice. It's since been featured on television and in films like Catch Me If You Can, and every time the top goes down is a reminder to me to slow down and enjoy the ride.

In 2001 I would return to college, working full time and taking night classes to finally graduate in 2003 from BIOLA University with a bachelor's degree in business and organizational leadership.

Until 2008 I had a mostly normal life, enjoying the fruits of a good job, summer house parties, traveling abroad, buying a new car, and even filming a movie, Dill, California. I knew however, that if I wanted to write or direct films I'd better dive in sooner than later so I left my stable but predictable life and headed back to Hollywood, for the third time for those keeping count.

After writing three screenplays and going to lots of networking mixers and events, I was wondering if I'd made the right choice. That was when I got the phone call that is still having an effect on my life - my father had six months to live.

A hurried trailer and a whirlwind experience of becoming my father's caregiver resulted in my feature-length documentary My Father, Who Art in Nature (2012), which showed at Nevada City's Wild and Scenic Film Festival, and to my dad, five days before he passed.

* * *

Five years have passed and though I've made another documentary, The Story of Jug Handle, shot another as Director of Photography Convinced (2015), launched a successful kickstarter campaign for my road trip web series Life is a Highway, life is still very much "in progress."

~ May 2016