Go Go Junior Rangers

As of today, Love and Cynthia are officially Junior Rangers at 6 national parks. There apparently is no age limit, rendering the 'junior' tag purely ceremonial. I guess its more of a suggestion than anything. The actual NPS rangers we had encountered had been extremely enthusiastic and passionate about the national parks and really helped us to appreciate the parks more.

As we drove up to the ranger guided Tree Walk, I had to do a double take as  I realised our walk was to be guided by perhaps one of the more well known rangers in the NPS. Shelton Johnson had featured heavily in the series produced by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan: National Parks - America's Best Idea. This series helped motivate us to go and see more of the national parks and it was great to have a guided tour by Shelton. I had low expectations for the Tree Walk but Shelton really made it interesting. 'Trees grow where they grow for a reason.' Very true. Trees will only grow where conditions are right. Trees cannot move like animals and are important indicators of environmental conditions. There are even sequoias in Yosemite Valley but these have been planted. Even so, as one of the fastest growing trees they are already big.

We also did the ranger guided Bear Walk and played with a bear hide Ranger Christine had. Apparently the bears in Yosemite don't hibernate like other bears because there is never a shortage of food available. Oreos, potato chips, candy, etc.

As per usual we tried to fit too much in and attempted to check out Mariposa Grove and the giant Sequoias as well in the same day. Little did we know that giant mosquitos attack humans at dusk down there...