The Day of the Raindear

Well, another weekend is ending and it is time to report on the letterboxing adventures that occurred. Yesterday, I had planned on being at Evansburg State Park at sunup to do the new Peanuts Gang series by the Raindear family but when I got up, the temp was only 24 degrees and the wind chill was 13 degrees so I decided to wait till later in the day and do some local boxing if it warmed up. About 10 o'clock, it seemed to be a bit warmer outside so I headed for the Daniel Boone Homestead. I had interviewed with the Park Administrator last fall and received his permission to place two boxes there but just hadn't had the time to get them planted during the winter months. So I decided that it was a great reason to be out but be close to home if it got too cold. I had never walked the trails at the Homestead before and I was rather pleasantly surprised when I got there. The one that I was on was extremely muddy which I have heard is the normal condition here, even in the middle of a hot summer. I was able to plant my two boxes and was really wishing that he would have given me permission to plant more. I had actually made four boxes for this park but my conscience got to me before I planted them and since it is a national historic site, I decided to ask permission first. The administrator seemed to have no problems with the idea of putting these there which made a lot of sense because there is a geocache there and the grounds are heavily used for orienteering. He just limited me to two to see how they worked out.

I had to come back and edit this a little to add something that I forgot. In my walk this day, I saw several hawks, some cardinals but best of all - a red fox! My first encounter with one on the trail. I thought it was a dog walking down the trail towards me but once he noticed me and lifted his head I realized what it was and as I fumbled to get my camera focused, he disappeared into the woods. But it was so exciting anyway.The picture at the top of the page is of the house that Daniel Boone was born in 1734 and the little figure in yellow is my Raindrop, my mascot for the Markeroni Challenge. Either he or I must be in all of the photos that I take for the Challenge, to verify that we were actually there. To the right of the house is the old smokehouse. The picture on the left is of the sawmill on the Homestead grounds.

After I left the Homestead, I began to take photos of Markeronis in the area and was able to increase my count by five in one little trip. Then I headed to the nearby town of Pottstown to scout out sites for my new series. I didn't really find anyplace suitable but I did find a site for a micro box that I will work on. After that I came home, wrote the clues for my new boxes and emailed them to the Daniel Boone administrator.

This morning when I got up it was a lot warmer than yesterday although the wind was still gusting pretty heartily. My plan was to do a bunch of Raindear boxes and then head to Marsh Creek and Warwick Park to scout out box locations. Well, I started out at Green Lane and quickly found The Blue Butterfly and was happy to be successful so early. I usually have a lot of trouble with Raindear boxes because the clues are usually really general and I just don't interpret them well. My luck didn't hold out on the next two Green Lane boxes though. I couldn't find The Red Maple or the Green Tree Frog. I was rewarded though with a beautiful little waterfall on my way to Green Tree Frog. I decided that it just wasn't going to be a good day at Green Lane so I headed down Rt. 29 to find his Perkiomen Trail - Sunrise and The Perkiomen Watershed . This was my second trip to the Watershed, the first time I was there the box had been flooded out of its hiding spot. However, I didn't mind going back again, there is a rock wall view that is really nice and one of my favorite things is also there - a boardwalk through the woods. I don't know what there is about a boardwalk in the woods but I just love them.

After this, I headed to Evansburg State Park and the Raindear's new series, The Peanuts Gang and almost disaster. Anyone who walks with me knows that I am extremely nervous about going down hills. I have no qualms about going up but going down makes me panic. This picture doesn't accurately reflect the steepness or the fact that the mud was ankle high which made it very slippery. The box itself is on the side of this hill and in a very precarious position. Warning to anyone who looks for this one, the tree that houses this box is draped in hairy poison ivy vines. I found the second box with minimal trouble but was very relieved that I was finding it now and not in the summer. The undergrowth will probably make this one impassable. Box number three was down another slope but this one wasn't as steep. However, it was creekside so if I would have slid down this one, I would have been in the water. Then the clues got very confusing on the way to box number 4. After walking the trail back and forth and ending up flat on my back in the mud, I finally gave up and headed back to my car.

On my way back, I passed a father with two small children. Here I am covered in mud looking like a hiker who might have an idea what she is doing, with my compass and my hiking stick and my pack and I warned this well dressed guy that the mud was terrible. He just laughed at me and said they would stick to the high roads and when I told him they were as bad as the creekside trails, he laughed again. I wonder how bad the kids looked till he got them in the car!