new mexico – Josh Hodge blog

Everything to Know About Joshua Hodge’s New National Park Book

April 30, 2021April 30, 2021Posted in national parks, nature, new mexico, texas, travel, UncategorizedLeave a comment

My new book is here! What is it about and why should you read it? I want to address this questions and more, so you really know what’s up with this book and why I’m so excited.

What is this book about?

This book chronicles a month-long adventure of camping and hiking in the U.S. National Parks in the summer of 2017. It features humorous and adventurous accounts, and descriptions, of the natural world, and it explores the inspiration gleaned from such experiences. It also explores the question of, what should be our response to natural beauty and the craftsmanship of God? It is not only an account of the physical adventure, and the things learned along the way, but also a look into my mind and the thoughts I have as a solo adventurer.

Why did you write this book?

Back in 2016, after another summer of adventure and being so inspired by my experiences, I started blogging. I realized I had a lot I wanted to share from my past adventure. As a writer, I used to write more fiction, but I realized my real life adventures provide all the engagement and entertainment one seeks in a good story. I came to find an audience online that appreciated and was inspired by my writing. I also had things I learned that I really thought others could benefit from, and not only that, but I wanted to inspire people to get out and come to realizations on their own. I decided to refine and compile what I had written, as well as include additional pieces, to create my book, Canyonlands: My adventures in the National Parks and the beautiful wild. I knew from the very start this would not be a stand-alone work. Still Calm, and Quiet: More Adventures in the National parks and the beautiful wild is the second installment in this series.

Should I read Canyonlands: My adventures in the National parks and the beautiful wild first?

I would love it if you read Canyonlands, but you don’t have to read it to enjoy Still, Calm, and Quiet. In its intro and opening chapters, Canyonlands gives a little bit more background and provides more of the logistical details of my travels.

Who published this book?

I am my own independent publisher and own all rights to my work. I design and format my publications. By meeting publishing standards, I am able to work with Amazon for printing and distribution.

How long did it take to write this book?

I began writing this book in 2019, before Canyonlands was published. It has taken me about three years. I had some journal entries and writings written during the 2017 travels that were incorporated into chapters of the book.

What makes this book unique?

This is very much a variety book. In addition to my adventurous accounts and exposé of inspiration, this book includes two biographical works, a fictional piece, a couple poems, over 100 black and white photos, and dozens of vintage illustrations. It has some great stories of me passing out, encountering a mountain lion, getting caught in a lightning storm, having my camp attacked by squirrels, being stuck in a buffalo jam, getting lost on a mountain, and much more!

Where can I buy this book?

Currently this book is only available on Amazon and is eligible for regular and Prime 2 day shipping. In a few months it should be available from walmart.com and other online retailers. Buy here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093RMBNCP

Is this book the same collection of stories found on your blog?

Some of the stories are the same as the ones found on my blog, but they have been refined, reedited, and augmented. A number of them are not and are only found in the context of this book. As one of my blog readers, you will find this new and fresh.

What are the parks featured in this book?

Chiricahua National Monument (AZ)

Fort Davis State Park (TX)

Big Bend National Park (TX)

Rio Grande National Scenic River (TX)

Chamizal National Memorial (TX)

White Sands National Park (NM)

Guadalupe Mountains National Park (TX)

Carlsbad Caverns National Park (NM)

Dinosaur National Monument (UT/CO)

Grand Teton National Park (WY)

Yellowstone National Park (WY/MT)

Bruneau Dunes State Park (ID)

Craters of the Moon National Monument (ID)

Wild Horse State Recreation Area (NV)

Rye Patch State Recreation Area (NV)

Lassen Volcanic National Park (CA)

Shasta State Historic Site (CA)

Whiskeytown National Recreation Area (CA)

John Muir National Historic Site (CA)

Is this book content appropriate for all readers?

Yes

What other books have you written?

Wild Christmas (2006)

Dakota Broken (2015)

Among Blue Smoke and Bluegrass (2018)

Canyonlands: My adventures in the National Parks and the beautiful wild (2019)

Señor Hodge’s Casa de Mascotas (2020)

Theodore Roosevelt for the Holidays: Christmas and Thanksgiving with the Bull Moose (2020)

Buy Still Calm and Quiet here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093RMBNCP

www.joshhodge.com

The Sandia Mountains and the Old Town

March 11, 2020March 11, 2020Posted in national parks, new mexico, travelTagged Albuquerque, merica clothing co, new mexico, old barrel tea, old town, sandia mountains1 Comment

My visit to Albuquerque was a pleasant one despite the fact that my gum infection was raging on and I was in a continual nuisance of pain. The night before my day of Albuquerque exploration I had a hard time sleeping as the pain was throbbing and so bad that it was creating a vibration sensation in my ears. I took some Tylenol and was able to sleep a bit on-and-off. In addition to the pain was the anxiety that this infection could escalate to the point that it could hinder or even stop my summer adventure.

I was visiting my cousin Rachel, her husband Alex, and their four year old son Malcolm. They devoted the whole day to introducing me to the city and sites of Albuquerque. It was a brightly sunny day and we started with a visit to Old Albuquerque, the historic center of the city from its founding in 1706. Here the church of San Felipe de Neri stands overseeing Old Town Plaza, the birthplace of the city, which is very reminiscent of the zocalos I’d seen in the center of many Mexican cities. It had pathways, areas of green grass, benches, and a gazebo for occasional performances. Surrounding the square were narrow streets with adobe structures one after another boasting artisan shops and local eateries. After taking our picture together in front of the church we went into a few stores and I saw the touristy nick-knacks and patty-whacks. I did not buy anything except a sticker of the Sandia Mountains. I knew we’d soon be going up them. I found it humorous that Sandia is a Spanish term for watermelon. I thought it was a coincidence but Rachel explained how the mountains can look pink with the sunset cast upon them in the evenings. We also stopped by Old Barrel Tea Company where I bought myself a cup of iced tea.

Here in the old town I also called my dentist’s office to see if they could prescribe any antibiotic for my gum infection. They informed me that they could not send a prescription to another state nor give me any recommendation except that the best thing I could do was to schedule an appointment to see a dentist in New Mexico. Given that the dentist would most likely be out of the insurance network and unreachable in a reasonable time frame, I realized I was on my own and was very disappointed in the healthcare system. This situation weighed heavy on me.

For lunch I enjoyed some New Mexican fare. I did not know that New Mexican cuisine is its own category. It’s a fusion of the cuisine of Pueblo Indians, Mexican, and Spanish and it incorporates a lot of local spice. I thought my experiences having studied and lived in Mexico would be enough to understand the menu, but I needed a little explanation. I had enchiladas de carne adovada with red pepper sauce. Carne Adovada? Pork slow-braised in a spicy red chile bath for hours.

After lunch the highlight of the day came, our trip up to the top of the Sandia Mountains on the Sandia Peak Tramway. Leaving the desert floor the tram glided above the Cibola National Forest. Below were a plethora of rock jumbles and desert shrubs hugging the sides of the mountain. Higher up pine trees started to make their appearance. The tram was very much like the one in New York City that travels between 59th and 60th street and over the East River onto Roosevelt Island but unlike that one, this one ascends 5,300 feet. In the winter this is also used as a ski lift but now in summer its a scenic tram ride. At the peak there are trails that venture off into the mountains and a platform to observe the city of Albuquerque so far below that it’s nearly unrecognizable.

Up here in the mountains we all started off on a short trail together, but I traveled a bit further as the rest went back to the lift area. I didn’t want to keep them waiting for me long, so I ran the trail two miles to the Kiwanis Cabin. An old rock shelter built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. The work of the Civilian Conservation Corps pops up in various National Parks, National Forests, state parks, and other public lands. I enjoy coming across their work because the quality and rustic craftsmanship is to be appreciated. Not only have they built cabins and lodges but also park roads, bridges, and trails. They are no longer in existence but functioned as a voluntary work relief program for unemployed young men primarily in the 1930s. This was a part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, which I am very hesitant to praise, but I am grateful for this part of it. Up here by Kiwanis Cabin I was at a rock protrusion. I enjoyed the great unobstructed view of the world below.

On my way back, on the narrow path between the trees, I began to pray to God about my gum infection and about this trip in general. I felt a great sense of peace come over me. All of my anxiety regarding my gum infection was hushed. Also up here in the mountains I felt way more in my element. I enjoyed Albuquerque below but something about the cooler mountain air was soothing. And amongst the pines and aspen I felt in the company of reassuring friends. The sweet smell of the western pines, brought back memories of prior summers, rekindled my spirit of adventure, and made me feel alive and vigorous.

After joining back with the others, we soon descended the mountain on the tram to the mainland. We stopped by a Bubble Tea cafe before heading to the house.

Back at Mesa del Sol I was able to kick off my boots and relax. I brought together all the stickers I had accumulated on this trip so far and began to sticker up my new dark green Nalgene bottle. I have a new tradition that each summer I buy a Nalgene and place stickers all over it from the parks and destinations I visit. I use the water bottle all summer, and then I retire it to a display shelf. Sometimes I’ll pull off a bottle from the past and use it again, but mostly they are momentums from the summer trips, and as I look over the bottle in hand, with all its stickers, I’m reminded of all the memories. Malcolm even made me a sticker for my bottle of his house, and although the bottle did sport it for a long while, eventually it fell off.

In the evening, nearing sunset, I went for another walk around the neighborhood. This time solo. I observed the Sandia or Watermelon Mountains in the distance and the pinkish color they reflected in the evening. I also walked by the Albuquerque movie studios. Out back they had the facades portraying an old Western main street for a Western sci-fi Netflix series in production.

Back at the house I visited with Rachel over yet another cup of tea. I learned that both Rachel and I have an affinity for hot teas of all kinds. I then told Rachel how I thought Malcolm looked like the child and protagonist, Elliot, from the recent Disney movie Pete’s Dragon. We ended up watching the movie. It is one of my favorite Disney movies. It makes sense for me taking place in the Northern woods, having a park ranger as a major supporting actor, and symbolically tying in themes and messages about life and spiritual matters. It’s soundtrack had been the background music for much of my traveling this summer.

And like this my visit with my Cousin Rachel and family came to an end. The following morning, I would hit the road. Just as one of the songs from Pete’s Dragon repeats, I would “go north,” and make my way to Colorado.

Read my previous episode “From Carlsbad to Albuquerque?” here: https://joshthehodge.com/2020/03/05/from-carlsbad-to-albuquerque/

Check out my new book “Canyonlands: My Adventures in the National Parks and the Beautiful Wild,” here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1711397873/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_UjGjEbYBGF4PR

The Mystique of Carlsbad Caverns

February 8, 2020February 8, 2020Posted in adveture, national parks, new mexico, travelTagged bats, Brazilian free-tailed bats, carlsbad caverns, caves, national parks, new mexico1 Comment

The drive from Big Bend National Park to Carlsbad Caverns is not one to boast of. I most definitely found myself on a truck route, a sure minority in my small car, with flat land and oil fields all around me and little to see. But when I arrived at Carlsbad Caverns just across the state line from Texas in New Mexico, the destination would most certainly be worth the journey.

National Parks that are formed around caves are hard to evaluate in comparison to other National Parks. There is such an immeasurable difference between a cave National Park and any other. Caves evoke different feelings. They are dark, dank, gloomy, yet wild pieces of nature’s artistry. I like them and they fascinate me, as do all wonders of nature. They can even inspire me, but hidden from the sun, beneath the surface of the land, they place themselves in their own category of mystique.

I had reserved a lantern tour of the Left Hand Tunnel portion of caverns online months in advance and was very much looking forward to it. This would be my first lantern tour in a cave. The following year I would get to go on a lantern tour in Mammoth Cave and Oregon Caves, but this was the first so I was very excited for it. Along with my excitement came a bit of frustration because I had trouble finding the park. The address I had led me to the park’s administrative offices in the town of Carlsbad. I began to consider that I might arrive late, miss my tour, and add this to my list of grievances: feeling burnt out, locking my keys in my car, having a rock fall and dent the hood of my vehicle, getting caught in a lightning storm at White Sands National Monument, and getting reprimanded from a park ranger. Of course I shouldn’t have been focusing on the bad and instead should have been grateful for being out here and being able to go to these parks in the first place, but this is where I was at mentally at this point in my trip.

After figuring my way and zipping around the five miles of road leading to the center of the park, I arrived with a few minutes to spare. I changed my clothes in my car for the cooler temperature in the cave, which stays at a consistent 56 degrees fahrenheit, and went into the visitor center to check in for my tour. There were ten people for the tour. We met inside the museum part of the visitor center and the ranger and guide, Josh from Maine, took us to a classroom to distribute lanterns. They were simple wood box lanterns with candles inside them. We then boarded the historic elevators which dropped us to 754 feet below ground level. At the time they were installed in 1932 they were the longest single-shaft elevators in the world.

During the tour, in which we made our way through the undeveloped section of the cave on a dirt path, the ranger presented the history of the discovery of the cave. According to the National Park Service “Our first credited cave exploration happened in the cave in 1898. Sixteen year-old cowboy, Jim White, was rounding up cattle one evening when he spotted smoke from a wildfire off in the distance. He went into high alert. Fires could be just as devastating then as they are now. He rode closer to gather information. How big was it? Was it moving quickly? What direction was it burning? These questions and more pushed Jim to ride to the fire so he could report back to camp with the most accurate information possible.

As Jim approached the smoke, he noticed something strange: he couldn’t smell the smoke, hear the crackling of flames, or feel the heat of fire. Jim realized he wasn’t seeing smoke. He was watching bats. Thousands-upon-thousands of Brazilian free-tailed bats. Jim finally stopped at the mouth of the cave completely mesmerized by the spectacle of flying mammals filling the air above him. He once said he watched the bats for nearly half an hour before the darkness fell so completely he had to return to camp.

Because he knew the other cowboys would mock him, Jim didn’t immediately describe what he’d seen to anyone. He thought it over for several days.The deep hole in the ground and its secrets continued to gnaw at him. He had to find out what was down in the dark recesses.” Jim went on to explore the cave more and introduce others to it.

I loved this story and tried to put myself in Jim’s place, discovering such an immense marvel on my own at such a young age. On another note, an additional fascinating thing I learned on my tour was that microbes have recently been discovered in the far reaches of the cave that specifically attack cancerous tissue and that this discovery may have huge medical implications on the treatment of cancer.

Although I very much enjoyed the tour, afterward things got increasingly fascinating. I was told that if I wanted to take the elevators back up to the visitor center I would have to soon, because they would be closing for the evening. If I chose not to, I’d have to hike my way out of the cave. Of course I opted for the latter choice. This gave me time to explore the Big Room of the cave and have a sandwich. I found it unique to order food and eat at the Underground Lunchroom. Back in the early days of the park there was an actual kitchen down in the cave, but because of food preparation causing damage to the cave, food started to be prepared outside of the cave and sent down.

After my quick bite to eat I began my exploration. I cannot put into words the uniqueness, the massive scale, the variety of what is in this cave. It is its own underground world. This is a cave with massive rock formations. I pondered if up above some if these things would be considered mountains. The scale is just astounding. And unlike Mammoth Cave which is largely covered by a capstone, this cave is a true cavern meaning it is composed of soluble rock which permits entrance of mineral water which grows speleothems and therefore makes the most impressive display of stalactites, stalagmites, straws, draperies, cave popcorn and bacon, and a plethora of other cave features. At times it all looks elegant, other times eerie. With every turn there is something strangely unique to look at. In the Big Room the park service has a paved trail with railings that meander around, and many spotlights illuminate the most astounding of features.

With a burst of excitement I went from one feature to the next, but then made the same walk again to quietly savor the surroundings and be filled with a sense of wonder. I could easily imagine I was on another planet, a more desolate one. When I was done pondering and wandering I began my ascent to the cave entrance. It was all a gradual uphill hike, along a paved path. The passage narrows and widens from one set of switchbacks to another. I was the only person on this path. Despite other parts of the park and the visitor center being quite busy, I didn’t see a singular person for the entire ascent. I felt like I had Carlsbad Caverns to myself. As I got closer to the cave entrance I began to hear chirping overhead. I looked up and saw small dark creatures flying near the roof of the cave. Bats! I thought. They grew in number and in volume the more I ascended, swirling in flight above me. The cave was very tall so I couldn’t see them up close, but I reveled in the unique experience of hiking in the company of lively bats.

Back at the visitor center I told a ranger what I experienced. I would be informed that they most likely weren’t bats but cave swallows. Also in the visitor center I watched the park film and bought a pin for my collection. Then after killing a bit of time, I went back outside to the amphitheater located right at the mouth and natural entrance of the cave. It was time for the nightly bat flight program. A ranger would talk about bats and then around sunset the bats would come flying out of the gave in a grand spectacle. So, as programmed, a ranger talked about bats feeding on bugs, especially mosquitos, and how the tendons in a bats hands are designed opposite of ours. To expand their fingers from their fist it requires strength, but a fist tightly clenched is in the nature relaxed position. This is how they are able to cling onto things and one another and hang upside down. The ranger talked about the immense size of the bat population between 200,000 and 500,000 in the cave and how bat, guano a.k.a. bat dung, was once harvested from Carlsbad Caverns for its value as a nutrient rich fertilizer.

The ranger then presented some sad news: do to the nature of the weather, the bats may not be coming out of the caves. It was a gloomy evening, clouds hung low and the wind was strong. It seemed that a storm was just moments away. The bats would not come out in storms. But then as he was talking about such a predicament a bat flew out of the cave, followed by another. They flew around a group of trees and went back into the cave.

The ranger explained that these were the “scouts.” The bat colony sends out a scout to check the weather and report to the rest. If the report is good, the group then exits the cave. If the scout determines the weather to be threatening, the colony would stay in the cave for the night and postpone eating. Minutes later a swarm of bats exited the cave in the most spectacular, eerie, yet beautiful display. They came out in a spiral formation almost appearing like a tornado, Dark black silhouettes contrasted against the evening sky. They flew right above me in a beautiful display with the precise coordination of a school of fish. With Batman and Halloween and all the other references to bats in popular culture I am quite familiar with the silhouette of a bat with its wings extended, but there is something strictly exciting and beautiful to see thousands of these silhouettes moving, flapping, flying above me in the sky.

Nowhere else have I seen such a display. It was breathtaking, and I was very fortunate to see it. Moments later it began to rain. The bats probably wouldn’t have exited the cave if the scouts had reported rain. I made it back to my car and opened up a can of soup and ate it for supper with the sound and display of rain water crashing against my windshield.

A trip to Carlsbad Caverns is worth every bit of time and travel to visit. It truly lives up to the title of National Park, for it is an extremely unique place to be treasured, with great stories, most impressive natural features, and a stunning show presented by it’s natural inhabitants.

Read my previous episode “On the Rio Grande: a world between U.S. and Mexico,” here: https://joshthehodge.wordpress.com/2020/02/02/on-the-rio-grande-a-world-between-the-u-s-and-mexico/

Check out my new book “Canyonlands: My Adventures in the National Parks and the Beautiful Wild,” here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1711397873/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_UjGjEbYBGF4PR