I grew up in Enfield, Connecticut, just yards from the great Connecticut River.  I went to college at MIT, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just yards from the Charles River.  Wanting to see the country, I went to grad school as far away from home and still be in the continental US (except for Alaska), at the U of California in San Diego.  There were no rivers there to speak of (the San Diego River is a culvert), but the school was just yards from the Pacific Ocean.   It was also close to desert and mountains.

I came back to Connecticut to do post-doctoral work at the University of Connecticut, and I was a visiting professor there for many years.  My research there concentrated on how plants sense their environment and respond to it.  My house was just yards from a pond and a bog. I left Connecticut for Illinois to teach Cell Biology at Millikin University.  Millikin is at the edge of the great North American prairie, and there was a creek just yards from my house.  After two years at Millikin and several months working in chemical analysis at Staley's manufacturing I came to Radford University to teach Cell Biology and Introductory Biology.  My house is just yards from the New River, now.