Ranger Ricardo
Artist | Professional | Varied

United States

Greetings and best wishes to all fellow deviants and other visitors who come here. I am the Slow Dog, also known as Ranger Ricardo, Yellow Team Leader with the Alcoa Ridge Runners, a local Blount County group of hikers who go out on weekend hikes and camps along randomly chosen trails in the backcountry areas of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

I believe in helping folks find real lasting joy every chance I get using the meager talents given to me. To this end, the artwork made by me and submitted to dA is presented in topical folders within the gallery, along with the thousands of favourites collected over nearly a decade of dA membership. With the best of regards, I thank you very much for visiting my little corner of deviantART. Everyone is always welcome here.

On these pages, you will see the grandest of mankind's musical creations up close and personal in all its glory, the King of Instruments, the Mighty Theatre Pipe Organ of the Silent Movie Age. You will also see beautiful landscapes, lovely women, and places where humans have lavished fantastic splendor upon homes, churches, and castles of all sizes. Tucked in between all this, you will find other objects of man's desire as well as the creatures who share this planet with us. Please enjoy your visit.



So how would one discribe me? Obviously, I am a flower child of the '60's, a mild mannered farm boy from East Tennessee who loves music and art, living by the way of the Hippy and following the teachings of Pachamama. Some would call me spiritual yet somewhat pagan, being a scientist by nature, a rather retiring and crusty old professor who holds Jessie Crawford, Uncle Albert and Madre Terra in the highest of reverant esteem.



I am a man who enjoys nature with a passion. Hiking and camping in the remote backcountry are the ultimate forms of rest and recreation for me among a few close friends. It is what I do on most weekends these days.

I an outgoing in public. However, I am a gentlemen with the ladies. To me, women are the artwork created by the Makers. They come in all sizes, shapes and colours, and they are all beautiful, each in their own wonderful way.



Women deserve to be treated with kindness, respect, adoration and equality as humans, for they are better equipped to handle stressful scenerios, and as an added bonus, appreciate art in ways men cannot.

When I am not building computers or making music, I can be found outside doing the greenskeeping, gardening, riding my bike, or observing the sky and woodlands during hikes in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.



I enjoy scale model construction, bowling, rollerskating and swimming. Diving from high places is a real thrill. I also enjoy flying in small airplanes. Anything that goes fast or has lots of power is pleasure for me, because I am a thrill seeker at heart. Boys never grow up. They just get bigger toys. Men go from being content commanding the playpen to taking over the world. I simply want to become one with Nature and have fun doing it.



East Tennessee is a unique place. To be found here are some of the oldest mountain ranges on Earth, where virgin undisturbed woodlands still grow. Folks who live here hold this magical land in such high reverance that a large area of wilderness, encompassing over 800 square miles in Tennessee and North Carolina, has been set aside as a nature preserve known as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Over a half million acres of mountains, valleys, lakes, rivers and streams combine with diverse wildlife, hardwood and evergreen forests to greet over nine million visitors per year. It is the most visited National Park in the United States, straddling the Tennessee/North Carolina border along the Appalachian Trail. I enjoy being outdoors and hiking in this wonderful place enough to have a strong desire to lend a helping hand to the land I call home.



The Smoky Mountains National Park has no admittence fee. Keeping it attractive for visitors while making sure that Nature stays in balance requires a lot of hard work and dedication. Many opportunities await folks who come here, not only to have fun and get away from it all, but also, to learn about the park and take part in the stewardship of this national treasure.



There are three ways to get involved if you share my passion for the wilderness. Obtain a job as a Park Ranger. Join the Great Smoky Mountains Association. Become a member of the Volunteers in Parks program. You can help us make a difference. We can save the wilderness for those who follow in the years to come. Click on a logo above to get started on your journey.



There are two kinds of personnel working within the staff of the National Park Service. There are the real Park Rangers, proudly wearing their trademark campaign hats, appointed federal lawgivers who get paid to work for the Department of the Interior. These hard working men and woman carry guns and wear the arrowhead patch on their left shirt sleeve and a badge above their left shirt pocket. Without these legendary American Icons, the park would not exist. We all owe the Park Rangers our gratitude. They are the true heroes of the wilderness.

Then, there are the many people who work tirelessly without pay right beside the Park Rangers. They do not carry guns but they do wear a Ranger uniform with the Volunteer patch on the left shirt sleeve. These enthusiastic and dedicated workers are part of the official park staff. Their reward is knowing the National Parks will be around for future generations to enjoy. I am woking toward enrolling in the service of the Volunteers in Parks. My intentions are to adopt a backcountry hiking trail with primative campsites to care for.



During the everyday responsabilities of working in the Smokies, the Park Rangers depend on the Volunteers, forming a great team of enthusiastic folks with an unlimited passion for sharing the love of Nature and preserving it for everyone to experience in the years to come. Hard work is always a prelude to more fun than you ever thought possible. We have a lot of work to do in these mountains, and we have a bunch of fun doing it. Join us and live the adventure.

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