Ranger Rusty

Ranger Rusty is the protagonist of the Centennial Campfire Trilogy and Ranger Rusty’s Campfire Tale. | Before Phones Movement | Our supporters | Our adversaries | Main campfire

Ranger Days
A Bob and Rudi Campfire

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Rudi joins Bob around the campfire …

To reminisce about the good old days.

Bob and Rudi collaborated on 12 campfire talks that led to writing the Centennial Campfire Trilogy: (1) The Legend of Campfire Charlie, (2) Last Stand at Boulder Ridge and (3) Final Campfire

Hindsight as we say is 20/20. The reason? We have the benefit of seeing how the future played out. We survived the past, so it must have been good, and so seeps in the “nostalgia effect.” But make no mistake, they were good times, too. At this campfire, Bob interviews Rudi about the ups and downs and many memories of his rangering days. Bob does his part by introducing a new “experimental s’mores” recipe that Rudi doesn’t seem to like much. It could have been intentional on Bob’s part knowing that if they were too good Rudi would have ate the entire stockpile.

Trilogy Trailer

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As he raised the American flag …

At the crack of dawn:

Ranger Rusty thought it was just another day of being on duty at the visitor center in the liquid heart of an ancient cypress forest. And later that night, by truck, heading to a nearby campground to give a half-hour campfire talk. Or so he thought. Or was Ranger Rusty in for the journey of his life.

So begins the “movie style” trailer for the Centennial Campfire Trilogy of three books co-written by Robert V Sobczak and Rudi Heinrich. The books include: The Legend of Campfire Charlie (Book 1), Last Stand at Boulder Ridge (Book 2) and Final Campfire (Book 3).

Buy the books at our store or find out more about the trilogy and how the story came to life.

Trilogy Sneak Peak
How one simple campfire spawned 3 books

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Hey there,

Thanks for stopping by. Today, I wanted to write a short piece on the three books that I co-authored. If the books were ever featured as a movie, the Hollywood-style trailer would probably go something along the lines as written below (and shown in the video.)

So without further ado …

As Ranger Rusty raised the flag at the crack of dawn, he thought it was “just another day. Little did he know his day would turn into a 3-book odyssey. Or am I talking about myself?

Little did I know (or imagine at the time) that the endeavor of writing those three books would take six years of my life. Not that I didn’t enjoy it, and not that I did it all the time, all day long. It was usually in the evening and early morning hours – before embarking into work at the nearby National Park/Preserve – that I did most of my writing. The caveat is that I did it every day. Rarely did I let a day go by without working on some aspect of the sprawling work. The other caveat is that I had a co-author, as elaborated in the video above. But even he would say when it came to the grindstone of writing it the book was primarily me. The other caveat, and there are lots – is that the three books chime in at just under 500,000 words. That’s quite a bit by any metric. A short book, like the Great Gatsby, is around 60,000 words. Could we have used an editor to help us shorten it up? Maybe so, but I stand by every word.

The three books

My Point:

The trilogy didn’t start as a trilogy. It started as a single book. And that single book didn’t start as a book. It started as a 30-minute campfire talk. The rest, shall we say, is campfire history. At the start of a journey usually you have no idea where it will lead. You can check out the books here: Visit the Trilogy’s website

Or, breaking news, check out the abridged version of all three here:

Buy the book: Kindle and paperback formats

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