My First Boxes on My First Day in the First State

Saturday, May 20, 2006 – the first day of my marathon letterboxing season began. Barney and I took Bill to the airport nice and early on that morning with only one tremendous scare when Barney decided to jump out of the back of the car as we were dropping Bill off. You must know how busy the drop off points are at airports, with buses and cabs darting in and out and the ten second rule for parking…..well, needless to say, it didn’t seem like a very good beginning to our weekend. I managed to capture the escapee unharmed, kiss Bill good bye, and headed to northern Delaware to begin my boxing weekend there. And it started to rain. I was beginning to think that I should just go home and crawl into bed but dauntlessly, I continued on. Our first stop was to find Sheba’s Educated Rocks. I wish I could tell you more about this box, but it is a mystery box and well worth the effort to solve the mystery. Then on to Sheba’s L’il Red Racer. We actually arrived at this box well ahead of our planned itinerary because even with a talking GPS on the mapping program of my computer, I still missed the turn that I should have made to follow the original agenda. No matter, the results were ok. We picked this box up and optimized our plans on the the mapping program and were rerouted to the Rockwood Park series by Mother Duck.

The Rockwood Park series, a very neat one in a very neat location, impressed me because the first box, X Marks the Spot, was carved by one of the ducklings who was only four when he made this stamp. Four years old…..hmmmmmm…….Lil Milkmonster is 16 months, that only leaves 2 years and 9 months until I can put a carving tool into his cute little hands. How encouraging! We had to work around the next part of the clue which took us into the garden because dogs were not allowed. Can you imagine anything so silly? Barney was highly insulted but pushed forward after we made some clue adjustments to the next box. Miss P created the second stamp, Star Box. I don’t know if Miss P is another duckling but it is a very nice stamp and was Miss P’s first carving attempt also. Another really neat thing about this particular box was its location beside a Hobbitt House. I don’t know what this house is used for, but I don’t think I want to know either because the fantasy notion is probably much more enjoyable than the reality. Tree’s Treasure, the third and final stamp in the series was Mother Duck’s creation, and took us by the Whomping Willow, the biggest willow tree I have ever seen.

We left this lovely location and moved on a bit to the Talley Day Park to search for some more of Sheba’s creations in the two box Snake Hunt series. I have to thank Sheba for making this one possible for me to complete. I had told her earlier in the week that I was coming to the area and she hurried out early that morning to replace her Snake Hunter box. I am really happy that she did this because this stamp is one of my favorites for the day. Cowsmart aka Death Moose created the Water Snake box of this series. Since snakes are my biggest fear in the woods, I wasn’t exactly sure that I wanted to look for this one, but I conquered my fears and captured this Snake.

After we completed the Snake Hunt, I decided to give Barney a bit of a rest as I went to the library to find Sal. I have to admit that this one had me stumped a bit. I totally misinterpreted one of the clues and wandered around the library a bit longer than I had planned. I must have looked a bit strange to the people there as I trudged around in my hiking boots but at least I didn’t take my walking stick in with me. It took a phone call to Sheba to steer me in the right direction for this one. Thanks for the help, Sheba, this was a totally wonderful stamp and a totally wonderful set of clues….once I knew what they meant.

I really wish that I could say more about the next box that I found, but again, it was a Sheba mystery box and all that I can say is that I found Zenith . When I got to this location, I truly doubted that there was a box there but Sheba did a really wonderful job of hiding this one.

I moved on then to Brandywine Creek State Park and first searched for the one and only box planted by Jagel, A Walk among the Pines. This park reminded me a lot of French Creek, one of my least favorite parks to walk in because of the rocks. And, of course, the clues led us up a rocky trail. By this time of day, we were pretty exhausted and I groaned when I saw where I had to go. But I was really shamed when a mother with a baby in a sling breezed on by me. I think Barney must have been slowing me down….yep, that’s what it was, Barney slowed me down. The clues for this box were very accurate and even though the stamp was store bought, it totally fit in with the location and it is one that I have never seen before. Nice job, Jagel, hope to see some more from your team.

We moved to the lower part of this park next to look for the awesomely evil, Le Jolie Rouge by Hikers ‘n Hounds. This section was a lot less rocky which was very fortunate because I don’t think I could have handled a tough walk by this time of the day. I was glad that I was able to find this one because any Carvin’ Carmen stamp is welcome in my collection, and this one is really neat. I moved on to Future Discovery Road Runner which was in the same section of Brandywine Creek but quickly gave up on that one when I saw that it was located in a rock wall. Call me a pain in the neck, but I totally dislike boxes hidden in old stone walls. It is really hard to describe stones and when people start to pull stones out randomly, then it becomes a real issue. So when I saw where this one was leading, I turned around and left. There were definite signs that other boxers had been there looking for this box. My hope is that the planter pulls the clues because there are a few "attempts" listed on the finds for it.

Barney slept solidly on the ride home, he hasn’t been out boxing with me for quite a while because unfortunately, he is starting to show some signs of age. He celebrated his ninth birthday last month and although he still gets excited when he sees me gathering my boxing equipment, I really don’t take him very often anymore.