Looking back and looking forward: For Treasure!
Ok. I’m doing multiple blogs this week because a lot of things are happening all at once.
The Specters of Mammoth Cave is releasing this Thursday! (September 14th, 2023)!
There will be another post about that!
However, This week, I also had the opportunity to travel out to the Dry Tortugas with my dad. It was the first time I have been back since last year’s release of Treasure off the Coast.
I am still so happy to have had the chance to write that book. The Junior Rangers Investigative Club was exploring the brick archways I used to explore, and sprinting through dark corners I used to avoid because I was worried about ghosts. They were working with a team of underwater archeologists, much like a team which worked out there while I was living out there. Lucy, Justin, and Rudy might have been snorkeling over people on made up wrecks, but their perspective was mine. Also I set one of the minor scenes in the story in my absolute favorite location on earth. (only rivaled by 1 other.) The top of Fort Jefferson, facing west over Loggerhead Key is the best sunset watching spot in the world.
This trip was extra exciting because I was traveling with my dad. He worked out at the Dry Tortugas, and later wrote a book about it. And this was the first time that the two of us were able to stand, side by side, next to our two books both featured in Fort Jefferson’s small visitor center.
We took the Yankee, just like Justin and Rudy do in the start of the book. And I walked along many of the routes the Junior Rangers Travel.
Along the way Dad sold and signed several copies of his book, and I did the same. It wasn’t a formal book signing. The trip was very last moment and I am still trying to figure out marketing, but it was fun none the less. But most importantly it was nice to be out there with dad again, and to see other people appreciating his work.
And it was a wonderful reminder of why I am writing my JRIC books. It’s so people who visit the parks can see themselves in the adventures, and learn more. Its so people who don’t have the opportunity to visit these parks can at least get some of what the experience of being in the parks is like. And it’s to encourage some of those who pick up the book, to head out on adventures themselves. (while hopefully being responsible about it.)
Reading in my favorite spot, the chapter set in this location.
All in all. It’s amazing to see my book on bookshelves not just in the Dry Tortugas, but also in the Everglades! And I hope to see The Specters of Mammoth Cave on bookshelves in Mammoth Cave soon. But mostly its just nice to remember how much fun I had living at the Dry Tortugas, and how much fun I had being able to write about it again. And I know that’s not the end of the Junior Rangers Investigative Club’s southern Florida adventures, because even as The Specters of Mammoth Cave releases, I’m already at work on another novel about Treasure set in a different Floridian National park.
But more on that later.
More Treasure to come!
Today, I simply wanted to write that it was great to have the opportunity to travel out to the park with my dad, revisit some of my favorite places, and relive some of my favorite memories.
Mood. And True for many, but not for me!