Kohlhaas' brand new release, Earth Trails, Heart Trails, is a dynamic journal tracing a three-month journey through the American southwest. From one historic corner to another, two experienced RVers take us from Michigan to Mississippi, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, and home again. Julie and her husband Kel invite readers to share the solitude, natural history and sheer beauty of places like Arches National Monument, Big Bend National Park, Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, Chiracahua Mountains, Chisos Mountains, the Colorado River, Comanche National Grasslands, Death Valley, Guadalupe Mountains, Gila National Wilderness, and Huron National Forest. The list of national treasures seems endless and this author unveils them with visual clarity and written grace. Through the medium of camping, hiking, simple meals, petroglyphs, and a step-by-step exploration of wilderness areas around cliffs, canyons, hot springs, bird preserves, Indian ruins, and rivers, Julie Kohlhaas compares, contrasts, and parallels the inner landscapes we all inhabit. The regions of marriage, relationships, parenting and grandparenting; the tensions between a stressful, materialistic culture and the human need for solitude, reflection and self-enlightenment; the environmental dangers that threaten natural wildlife, bioregions, and the ancient lands of native peoples---these are all a part of the journey.

Julie Kohlhaas taps the wisdom of other journalists---A Country Year, A Garlic Testament, A Walk Across France---as well as the essential knowledge of writers like Barbara Kingsolver, Edward Abbey, C.S. Lewis, Gary Zukav, John McPhee, Stanley Crawford, Sue Hubbell, Wallace Stegner, Susan Trott, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. A lifelong learner and a voracious reader, this author braids together her own life experience, personal reflections of a very interesting life, and treasured insights of the great writers whose influence has been felt. Extrovert or introvert, traveller or home-body, workaholic or retired, single or married, old or young---chances are you will love Earth Trails, Heart Trails.

Reflections from the Author

When I decide to journal, to take a step toward understanding my life, the whole creative force that connects every scrap of living energy in this universe conspires to bring my soul to wholeness. I didn't start journaling because I needed a hobby or because someone gave me a beautiful empty journal as a gift. I came to journaling with a broken heart to figure out who I was in trauma. I was fighting for my life, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and I grasped at every tool I could lay my hands on to heal. The words of Elva Trevino Hart in Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child could have been mine as she writes:

"I wanted to take all the darkness and turn it into luminosity.
I wanted to weave all the old, dark strands into the tapestry of my current life. I wanted to eat my experience and digest it until it became a part of me ... Why am I doing this? Would it matter if I wrote or not? Then I knew. If I didn't write, I would die inside while my body was still alive."

When I map where I've been and where I am now, I take the responsibility to become my own cartographer: others'; maps—written, spoken, or enacted—become my teachers, my healers.

• My journal holds the key to unlocking compassion for myself and for others.


• My journal reveals patterns of behavior that may have worked at one time but that no longer meet the requirements of my life.


• My journal teaches me forgiveness when I've failed to learn my lessons.


• My journal documents well-worn ways to locate and heal my pain.


• My journal reveals where I'm out of balance, where internal and external forces are at war.


• My journal anchors my successes in time, place, and memory.


• My journal is a place to weep, a place to bury and safe-keep anger until I can bear to look at it and begin the healing process.


• My journal chronicles the earthly beauty my feet find, giving me places to drench myself in perfection.


• My journal is a place to voice what I uncover in silence.

So profoundly positive that the desire of my soul is to grow and that this journey is one of solitude, I am willing to scour every possible corner to learn. The books referenced in this journal came to my hand of their own accord. They confirm my belief in the spiritual dynamic of “when the student is ready, the teacher will come.” Since childhood, reading has been so ingrained in my daily life that it would be impossible not to reverently incorporate these “siftings” into my journal.

I became a reader of journals by default many years ago while living in Africa, scrounging for books on the shelves of every compound we visited. Several years later, when I lived in Montana, the lives of pioneers became real as I read their journals chronicling the day-to-day observations of their new lives. Then, while living in Utah, the world of Mormonism opened up through journals of early pioneers.

Now, with my journal in my backpack, I see differently. I’m not just trying to put a name or description to something, but trying to get a view of the whole. When I write, daily patterns emerge that cause me to examine more closely who and where I am and how I fit into the “whole.” These jottings have become a way of seeing in the dark, a way of celebrating steps in a journey, a way of hueing a path both figuratively and literally. As I have learned from the journaling of others, I have written down my own thoughts and experiences.

This journal is a “word map” of a Southwest winter my husband and I spent towing a twenty-six-foot trailer. It was our fourth trip to this remarkable region. Each year we visit our favorite places, such as Big Bend National Park in Texas, Gila National Wilderness in New Mexico, Organ Pipe National Monument in southern Arizona, Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Arizona, and the list goes on. Every year, though, we learn of new places to visit from magazines such as Backpacker and Outside, from Internet research, from the advice of fellow travelers who appreciate the primitive, wilderness areas that we love so much, and from our own intuitive wanderings. These journal pages trace geographic maps, relationship maps, and personal maps of growth. I invite you to share the maps of our journey, as you reflect on your own. Perhaps we are all called to be cartographers in our own lives.

"In a journal that transports you—literally—from the cold winter months of Michigan to the ever-changing climes of the Southwest, Julie Kohlhaas takes you with her on her journey as she and her husband explore some of the more remote areas of the U.S. and examines the inner recesses of the soul. As Julie states it so eloquently, 'These journal pages trace geographic maps, relationship maps and personal maps of growth...Perhaps we are all called to be cartographers in our own lives. Earth Trails, Heart Trails: A Southwest Journal is a richly rewarding read for those of us seeking our own way."

—Phyllis McCrossin, Public Relations, Central Michigan University

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"Like Spike, their cat, Julie has her own all-over ‘golden burnish.’ Hers comes from an inner radiance, a kind of light in her soul. That light transforms itself into words as she shares with us the stories of her outward travel on the road and her inward journey of self-enlightenment."

—Char Kolon, Teacher and Friend

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"This book gets under our protective layers and celebrates the simple daily pleasures we often overlook: the plan-altering impact of weather, the chuckling idiosyncracies of people, and the bittersweet feeling of understanding the connections."

—Cullen Brown

About the Author