Ranger Harris

I realized that most of my blogs about the National Park Service have been about traumatic events, disastrous choices, and life-threatening doom. Perhaps those are the things that our memories choose to preserve. The combination of adrenaline, dopamine, and norepinephrine form an acid that etches these memory in my marbles. In an effort let the world know how much I appreciate the National Park Service and its employees I will occasionally emphasize our positive encounters with our nation's parks.

July 2nd and we were finishing our day at the National Mall with a visit to the U.S. Grant Memorial and the Capitol Building. In front of the Capitol a stage had been set up and musicians were filing in. We knew that there would be fireworks on the 4th, but we thought we might get a bonus show that night. Looking around for someone to ask we spotted the regulation green and brown of the NPS.

We have grown accustomed to asking rangers all or our questions.What are the best trails? When did this become a national park? Where is the picnic ground? What was Derek Jeter's batting average in home night games? So naturally we decided to ask this ranger what events were scheduled for this evening.

Eric Harris was on  special duty at the mall that night because, as he explained, there was a dress rehearsal for the big show on the 4th. There would be no fireworks.

However, while talking to Ranger Harris he noticed that Evan was wearing a couple of Junior Ranger badges. Ranger Harris became quite animated at this point and started asking Evan which parks he had been to. With our help he explained that we had been several of the parks in the city.

He told us that we needed to head out to National Parks East. He was normally stationed at Green Belt and insisted that we go there. We assured him that it was on our agenda. We also told him that we would be heading up to Gettysburg. His smile became even broader as he told us how great Gettysburg was, and told us that we should visit the Eisenhower home that is adjacent to the battlefield. Though our schedule was tight we promised to go there.


Not Eric Harris, but another very helpful ranger at Greenbelt.


When we are on vacation and wandering around, the wide brim of the rangers hat is always a welcome sign. Ranger Harris is just one of the hundreds of rangers that have helped us, guided us, and made our trips as fun as they are.