calherewecome

Harold (on right) joining the park service

Time for another dive into the box of old photos stored in Mary’s Storage Locker. We found this gem of Harold signing on to the Park Service.

Back in the early fifties, Paula’s Dad (Harold) started working as a park ranger at Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California. Starting in 1952, on the day that school ended in June, Harold and Mary loaded up the 52 Ford, hooked up the trailer and headed north to Lassen.

They did this every summer until about 1972. Harold lived for the day that they would head north for the summer. He always told us that was what kept him sane. He would work at the park until Labor Day when they would head back to civilization.

Harold worked for twenty years at Lassen. After he retired, he received a small Social Security benefit for his time working for the US Park Service. Mary allowed him to put that fund into a separate bank account that he would use to fund all of his trips with the Shriners.

So where exactly is Lassen? Lassen is in Northern California about 75 miles northwest of Reno. Here’s a map to give you an idea where it’s located.

In 1986, Paula, the boys and I had the chance to visit Lassen with Harold and Mary. We had rented a motor-home for the trip. By the time we made this trip to California, our boys were old pros at air travel.

We took three days to get to Lassen with stops in Bishop and Lake Tahoe. On our trip we drove north on route US-395 which winds north to the east of the Sierras.

When Harold did the trip he usually did it in two days which is a long haul. He would stop in Bakersfield on Saturday night, then he would drive on to Redding on Sunday. Grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon and then up into the park. He would start work on Monday morning.

This trip was our boys introduction to camping. The following year we bought a pop up trailer and a couple years later a full size travel trailer.

So we spent a few days camped at Manzanita Lake. We met up with our friends the Coils and our friend Andrea. We did some hiking and touring. Then we headed west to Eureka, then south to San Francisco. We actually found a campground in San Francisco. We road the cable cars, then flew home from SFO while Harold and Mary drove south to LA.