Yesterday, my granddaughter, Hannah, became a Junior Ranger in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

I had bought the booklet for 7 and 8 year-olds a week before and studied it to see how she could accomplish this in a day. I know it's using inside knowledge because it's difficult to do this properly in a day. The children need to do several activities, pick up a bag of trash and go to a ranger program. When there's no ranger program, another activity can be substituted.

We start at the Mountain Farm Museum just outside Oconaluftee Visitor Center. She's really taken by the pig and the rooster. We hear the rooster and walk around the barn several times until we see it on the upper loft.

After finishing the farm, we stop on a bench so Hannah can make notes and fill in one of the activities. She had come prepared with pencils, a sharpener, eraser and crayons.

We walk part of the Oconaluftee River Trail and look for trees -  a leaf hunt including tulip tree, hickory, maple , sassafras  and dogwood. We see lots of poison ivy on the ground. Now wouldn't that would be a useful thing to be able to identify?

We drive to Clingmans Dome to find trees at a high elevation. Hannah is supposed to smell the air. "How is it different from your neighborhood and school?" Cold and foggy -  that's how.

We climb the tower in the fog but all the views are the same color - gray. We look for fir, spruce, yellow birch, American beech. The walk to the top of the Clingmans Dome tower may not have been the best place to identify these trees since it's hard to get off the pavement  but we find all those trees.

All this time, we're on the lookout for trash. It's not easy in a day; the park is so clean. We pick up a few stray pieces of cellophane and add our lunch trash.

The first two activities are about the regulations (a tough word for a seven-year old). Adults might be put off with "thou shall not" but children feel comfortable with rules.

"Hey! We have rules around here... leave everything as you found it, don't feed the wildlife, don't carve your name on a historic cabin  

At the end of the booklet, Clingmans Dome at 6,643 ft. is compared with other sites. A big stretch for 7 and 8 year olds - Eiffel Tower (985 ft.), Big Ben at 316 ft. The only height she really understands was a two story house (20 ft.)

Our final stop is at Mingus Mill, a working corn mill with a miller. They grind corn though they don't sell the corn they grind because of health regulations. It'd raining cats and dogs but we persevere. We scramble up to a slave cemetery just before Mingus Creek Trail to see several mounted graves with a stone on either end of the graves to signify the length of the body.

Finally the ceremony.

We traipse into Oconaluftee Visitor Center, soaked but  protecting the booklet and get the attention of Range Florie Takaki. Florie is in charge of volunteers so we know each other well.

She asks Hannah where she lives and what grade she's going into. Then she announces in a loud voice, meant to get the attention of everyone in the Visitor Center.

"We have a special girl about to be sworn in as a Junior Ranger." Hannah is mortified at the attention but Florie puts her arm around her. She asks Hannah to raise her right hand and read the Junior Ranger promise:

As a Junior Ranger, I promise to help protect the plants and animals of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and keep the air, water and land clean. I will continue to learn more about the park so I can help protect it for all the years to come.

Florie helps Hannah with a couple of hard words. Then she offers Hannah the choice of a pin or badge -  a badge of course, which is unique to the park. Florie fills out and signs the certificate with a flourish.

I take a picture of Hannah in a flat hat - a ranger's hat. Maybe one day, Hannah will earn a real hat and badge.