Trip Tales: From Family Camping to Life as a Ranger

by Rosanne S. McHenry

What’s the wildest thing that ever happened to you during an outdoor adventure?

Did you accidentally set your boots on fire? Get attacked by hungry raccoons or investigated by a curious bear?

What’s it like to be a park ranger? What happens when you get bucked off a horse, dangled from a cliff, bitten by bloodthirsty horseflies, or fall smack-flat onto your butt while leading a group of scouts down a trail?

These hilarious and eye-popping adventures will capture your imagination and carry you right into the experience of visiting our beautiful parklands. A fun beach read, or great stories for families to share.

300 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 1, 2021

About the author

Rosanne S. McHenry lives in Auburn, CA with her husband, Vernon. Their home is next to the American River Canyon in the Sierra Nevada Foothills. Rosanne has worked as a National Park Ranger and as a CA State Park Ranger in many different places over the years, including the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Mt. Rainier National Park, Auburn State Recreation Area, Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park in Coloma, and Death Valley National Park, among others.

Her time spent on family camping trips as a child gave her a tremendous love for the outdoors, as well as a deep understanding of how important it is to protect our natural resources. Trip Tales talks about how her childhood outdoor experiences shaped her decision to become a park ranger, and her first assignments working for the U.S. National Park Service in California and Washington.

“Being a park ranger gave me a unique opportunity to talk to people about our natural world, and to instill a deep sense of stewardship in each person I met. This beautiful planet, our Earth, is our shared heritage and we all play an important role in protecting it.”

Learn more about her at www.triptalesbook.com

Reviews

[Kristine L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saturated with joy, whimsy, and reflection, Trip Tales packs prodigious storytelling skills into colorful chapters that are brief, pithy and easy to digest. It’s a delightful read that’s warm and witty. Clever and catchy. Entertaining. Educational. Emminently engaging.

Structurally, Trip Tales is divided into two parts. Part I is a retrospective look at Family Camping and Outdoor Adventures. It's a charming and delicious coming-of-age tale in which the author recounts the uncertain joys of family camping in a metal trailer, a canvas tent trailer, a motorhome, and with a BYO picnic table. It chronicles big adventures - often with hilarious side trips - to state and national parks, beaches, and encounters with poison oak, voracious racoons, greedy chipmunks, curious bears, and berry picking. To name a few.

There’s also “OUCH!” and “potentially perilous journeys” that were intercepted and nipped in the bud by Dad. Ditto the effects of “progress” on the natural world.

Part II is The Road to Ranger Land. This part takes readers on a journey of discovery into what it’s like to be a park ranger, how to get there, and what it was like to be a female park ranger at a time when the field was dominated by men.

While this bright, breezy memoir will appeal to outdoor lovers and adventurers, readers of a certain demographic will especially enjoy this lively look back at lessons learned on family camping trips throughout the West Coast and Canada in the 1960s and 1970s. They were the basis for the author’s desire to become a park ranger.

I especially loved the part in which the author tells us about her arrival at my favorite national park, Washington's Mount Rainier National Park, as a summer seasonal ranger.

Vibrant, vivacious, and told with a twinkle, this book is a winner. I LOVED it! You will, too.

My Rating: 4.5

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining read, the author has a unique story to tell from remembering family camping trips to becoming a park ranger. There were times when I felt as though it was written with a thesaurus close by when word choice jolted me out of the story and into my head. I listened to this on a library digital download, and the reader wasn't great. Odd syllable emphasis and word pronouncement here and there, overly casual performance that drifted from relaying a memoir in a personal tone to what sounded like an unpractical read aloud. That sounds like a lot of criticism, but, it would be a good family trip listen if kids are older elementary and maybe middle school or patient high scool age, especially the first half that focuses on family adventures and mishaps.

[JoEy Surin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book at a local farmers market, when I found out the author was a friend of the seller and local as well, I had to get it. Not just because she was local, but it definitely looked like something I would enjoy. It was written really well and easy to read. If I were to have any negative critique, it would be, how it bounced around in timeline a little. With that said, it does not take away from the quality of book at all. This was very entertaining, and I liked how I felt like I was a part of her story. It brought back great memories of myself as a kid going camping with my family. It even brought me back to a time when I took my son to Lassen and we went on a guided tour. The Park Ranger was talking with all the kids, asking them about their favorite types of food that may come from the forest. My son said "Tofu"; the look on the Ranger's face was priceless.