This website is dedicated in memoriam to my dear “sister” Carolena Martin, PhD, 8/28/1944 – 4/5/2026. You were the true matriarch in the camping/nature world, especially at GemLike Campground, for over fifty years. Sporting your wide brimmed sun hats and southern charm you will be sorely missed by so many. At eighty two you didn’t look a day over forty-nine, with your fabulous figure and long natural blonde wavy hair.
I was so honored to be able to recently proofread your latest manuscript, Mississippi Dreamer, a wonderful book about healing from betrayal patterns. I plan to pick up the torch and make sure your last book gets published.
What an exciting full life you lived. After your career managing flight attendants for an airline, you, as a single mother managed to obtain a PhD, and then taught college level literature for many years in Florida. What an incredible writer of several self-published books and so knowledgeable about patriarchal B.C. societies, archetypal goddesses, Jungian psychotherapy, the Aegean Sea, astrology and wildlife. I will never look at a scrub jay, baby eagle or great horned owl again without thinking of you.
I will never forget your riveting stories of amazing experiences about camping alone in Alaska with the grizzly bear poking its head inside your tent, camping with your grown daughter in a volcanic crater in Hawaii, witnessing the slaughter of the huge sea turtle and risking your own life to put those horrible men behind bars. Or the true-to-life tales of the huge alligator walking across your hiking path, practically driving off the cliffs out west, your living on a boat and once having to shoot your 22-caliber gun in the air to scare away a creepy guy with the worst of intentions.
I will most certainly miss watching with you the sunsets at GemLike Campground, and my being more entertained by your oohhing and aahhing reactions, your voicing aloud goodbye to the sun as it crossed the horizon over the prairie, then commenting on the stars and planets, and sounds of Barred Owls and whippoorwills.
I could never thank you enough for helping me get over my fears of what could possibly happen as I slept alone in my tent the first year of my camping lifestyle. You gave me so much confidence in my own writing pursuits. I am so sad we couldn’t fulfill our plans of traveling the country next year, camping and doing book signings together.
Rest in peace, my special one-of-a-kind friend. I can picture you in heaven reuniting with your favorite pet dog, Maya, dancing up a storm, doing yoga and hopefully having a fabulous soulmate, unlike the abusive men you were involved with in your life here.
Carol Lena is survived by her daughter, two energetic grandsons, and three sisters.