Day 75 (September 5): Attack of the Junior Rangers

(I'll add more pictures once our internet improves)

Until a few weeks ago, I didn’t know that the National Park Service has something called the Junior Ranger Program. Now I’m an expert. Now Henry and Lily have taken the “JR Oath” to protect the natural and cultural resources of our parks. Now Henry and Lily have badges/patches from two parks (Acadia and Minuteman). So buckle, up folks, here’s a little story.

At the park’s visitor center, a young person can present themself and receive a Junior Ranger “program,” which is a little like a scavenger hunt. Today, in Minuteman National Historic Park (outside Boston), the requirements for earning a badge included three site-specific worksheets and two “extra” activities.

The first site was a no-brainer, since the visitor center where we started was an eligible site. The kids devoured the exhibits and then sat through a half-hour movie in the center’s theater in order to gather their data. One question stumped me: it wasn’t Paul Revere who warned the residents of Concord about the advancing British troops! Revere and two comrades (Dawes and Prescott) were apprehended en route but Prescott evaded the captors and traveled on to Concord. One site down.

The second site was the Hartwell Tavern, an original strucutre preserved for visitors. The investigation focused on comparing this home to ours. There were two park rangers in period attire and interviewing them was part of completing the worksheet. It may have bordered on an interrogation. As a bonus, we were there for a musket-firing demonstration. Two sites down.

My four kids interviewing/interrogating the in-costume Park Ranger.

Aspiring Junior Rangers hard at work inside Hartwell Tavern at MNHP

The last time we hugged at Walden Pond was about 17 years ago. We had zero kids and the hair above my shoulders was on my scalp and barely on my face. Elise looks exactly the same, not that I'm resentful at all.

Before we got to the third site, my navigational error led us on a detour to Walden Pond. If the day had gone differently, we most certainly would have let the kids swim in the pond. It’s beautiful, peaceful, shallow and warm. We seemed to be there at the same time as some masters/seniors open water swim meetup. The twins were enthralled. WIth more time and more energy, we would have done the 1.7-mile hike around the lake. You see, it was on this hike that I proposed to Elise in October of 2002 and it would have been fun to show the kids the spot. Oh well.

The third site was the Old North Bridge and its visitor center. This is the location of the famous “shot heard round the world” and the kids have become experts this week on this episode. They liked the bridge (as much for playing Pooh Sticks as for the historical significance). Lily and Henry filled out their worksheets, which included sketching the scene and answering some then-versus-now questions. A quarter-mile up the hill was the visitor center where the kids took their JR oath with a non-junior ranger and collected their badges.

The program really seems like a homeschooling dream. I don't think the kids would ever let us feed them the quantity or variety of information they consumed today. The downside, if any, is that if you try to accomplish it in one day it can become onerous. On one hand, the kids wouldn't want it any other way; they are focused, motivated, and having fun. On the other hand, they hardly realize that we have to rush them along so that they can get their badge before the final visitor center closes for the day and, in this case, before the rush hour traffic makes reaching our campground miserable.

We are now at rest at an RV park in the southern suburbs, near an old friend’s house. There’s a pool and a playground here and we snagged the site closest to both. The kids swam, played, ate, did a little homework, watched a few shows through a semi-functional internet connection. Add a beautiful sunset and some quiet music and you’ve got bedtime. Goodnight!