Book release! Blog

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…

You can’t. This is my blog! Ha! Although, seems a bit like an empty victory. How many people will read this anyway? Well, I hope more read the book. Wait, what was I saying? Let me start over.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. My favorite view in the entire world is at sunset, sitting atop a powder magazine on the 3rd floor of Fort Jefferson in Dry Tortugas National Park. Not just any powder magazine, the one just past the: Do Not Cross sign on the western section wall. It’d be up one floor up and to the left from view on the front cover of Treasure of the Coast. My new book - which is out now!!!! (See below)

I mean, isn’t this awesome! (there’s interior art as well!)

Yay! New book!

But back to that powder magazine. From the western wall of the fort, from the top floor, you can look out over the ocean at sunset and watch the skies vibrant shift to indigo night as the sun sinks beneath the darkened shadows of Loggerhead Key. There’s usually a breeze, which typically gets cooler as the stars come out. The Dry Tortugas are ~70 miles from Key West, and although there are a few man-made artificial lights which influence the night sky, (you can sometimes see the lights from Cuba reflected on the clouds) it’s incredibly dark. Which makes it great for star gazing. One time I saw a green flash.

One of my favorite locations on Earth is the blowhole in Wupatki National Monument near the Wupatki ruins. I can remember, being amazed when my dad held out a spare t-shirt and it was filled with air from below. It was an awesome demonstration of how magical our world could be.

I learned how to snorkel in Biscayne National Park, and learned about the beauty and alien majesty of the underwater world. Christmas Tree Worms are crazy!

I learned how wonderful geology could be in Arches. I learned that darkness wasn’t scary by walking through Carlsbad Caverns, where total darkness is just part of the tour. I watched, amazed, as a section of ice calved off the side of Portage Glacier in Chugach National Forrest. I learned more about civil war history from Dry Tortugas than I did in school. I … I could go on all day. The point is, from an early age my life was shaped by the parks I was fortunate enough to live in, and the ones I was able to visit.

And from an early age, I’ve developed these places in my imagination. I used to populate Wupatki with my early day dreams. (Very early, I was born there.) While snorkeling in Biscayne, I would look for signs of pirates in the rubble under the coral. (don’t touch.) In the Dry Tortugas I would sit in the waters near the south beach and imagine that the fort was a castle, on the edge of the world - or on another planet, and I would populate it with characters and stories. Also with ghosts. Fort Jefferson gets very dark at night, and I would almost always regret sitting atop the fort and star gazing because it meant walking down the dark turret stairs listening to the echoes of my feet on stone and hoping that I didn’t hear anything else behind me.

My imagination has been shaped even by the parks I’ve never visited. I dreamt, and still dream, of taking a submarine into the depths of Crater Lake because I read about it in a book. I have seen the beautiful pictures of Acadia National Park in the fall, and can imagine myself there though I have never visited. I’ve read so much about the wolf studies on Isle Royal (and taught my students about them!) I am inspired by the pictures I have seen of the National Park of American Samoa, and would really like to see a fruit bat.

Every park has it’s story, and any park can surprise. I didn’t even know Craters of the Moon existed until I drove through it with two friends, but found it to be amazing. The history in each park is worth discovering, and we are learning more each year. The nature in each park is worth preserving. The whole reason they are there.

So, why did I want to write fiction stories about national parks? Well, this will be a topic I come back to in future blogs. But there is an obvious and simple answer.

My favorite view in the entire world is sitting atop a powder magazine on the third story of Fort Jefferson and watching the sunset behind Loggerhead Key. But not everyone can see it. (unless you live out there or have permission, it’s not even allowed - the fort closes at dark) There is so much joy and potential in every national park.

And I want to share it.

So, I am.

Unlike the crew of courageous detectives in the Junior Rangers Investigative Club, I’ve never solved a mystery in a national park. But just like them, exactly like them I love our parks and I want others to love them to. So, I wrote a book, and it’s out now. And there are more books to come!

I hope you enjoy!

This is the powder magazine I was writing about. If you want the view, you should use your imagination, consult the book cover, and check out Chapter 10 in Treasure off the Coast.

Kevin, and Tazo, art by me. (don’t blame anyone else)