Sneaker vs Hiking Boots

When I plan which boxes I am going to hunt on a given day, I tend to classify them either as a sneaker box or a hiking boot box. A sneaker box is one that is found in a manicured suburban park and showing up in these parks wearing a pair of hiking boots usually attracts frowns from passersby. Hiking boot parks are the more rugged ones where sneakers would just slip and slide all over the place. Well, Saturday was a combination day; I got to wear my sneakers and my hiking boots. It also was one of the most beautiful weather days that I have boxed in for a long time.

I began the day with a sneaker box with Lightnin’ Bug’s Great Allentown Fair letterbox. This stamp had been part of a postal letterbox series that I had hosted eons ago when I was into PLBs. When it returned home, Rich planted it and now I could count it as a “find”. I woke up at 3 on Saturday and I just couldn’t get back to sleep. I figured that I would be tired when I got to the park and could just sleep in my car till it was light. Do you know how early it gets light out now! I love it but it meant that I didn’t get the little nap that I really needed. I found this box fairly easily in the early morning light. There is the mention of a little uphill in the clues to this box – let’s just say I was glad that I had taken my walking stick with me because I needed it.

Next I headed to Indigo Vulture’s new box, the Nor-Bath-Tub . Lucky for me that I had been planning on boxing in the Lehigh – Northampton county area all week and Myke’s timing in posting this box was flawless for me. This was also a sneaker box in a really nice and really busy suburban park. The stamp is great and stamping in can be done with a nice little view.

My next stop was a toss up between sneakers and hiking boots. I chose the sneakers to do Indigo Vulture’s Xak Promar series. I was delighted to see a cascading dam with water spilling and took a ton of pictures there. The sun was shining brilliantly and reflecting off of the water so I particularly enjoyed the threevboxes in the series which took me directly along the river. Surprisingly the park was deserted while I was doing the boxes but then, on my way back to the car, I came across a whole group of teens with some adult supervisors who were working steadily at cleaning up the trail. I was thankful that they didn’t appear till I had finished my boxes and that the Xak boxes were far enough off the trail to avoid these hard worker kids. Oh, and one further note: I FOUND A HITCHHIKER, I FOUND A HITCHHIKER, I FOUND A HITCHHIKER!!!

From Riverfront Park, I headed to Lake Warren and Lotus’ two box series named – what else - Lake Warren . As I was getting out of my car, I noticed a hunter coming out of the woods with a rifle. I didn’t know that it was any kind of hunting season right now but I did grab my orange vest and wore it, just to be safe. One of the Lake Warren boxes, The Beaver, took me across the spillway that gave me a perfect view of a really neat little lake with a beaver hut in the middle. Of course, the perfect weather made the water look even more beautiful. The other box, The Watcher, took me away from the lake and up the side of the mountain. After I finished these, I found the Turtle by the Lake by PA Maple Leaf. This box took me even closer to the beaver hut and gave me more reason to stop and snap pictures. If you look to the center of this picture you can see the beaver house.

From here I headed to Lightnin’ Bug’s Zenos First Paradox box, a definite hiking boot box. Since it is a mystery box, I can’t give any details of it but let’s say – I found it! Zenos Second Paradox though, was another story. The mud in the area was so deep that I could hardly walk without losing my boots and walking in the woods off trail was not an option. I was focusing so hard on walking in the mud that I actually missed the landmark needed to locate the box and I was not about to go back and do it all over again. It will wait for a drier time of the year.

At some time during the day, I saw one of my Markeroni signs and stopped to photograph it. Silly me found out that the marker was for the Delaware Canal State Park and I knew that there were some boxes there. I had the clues along for one of them Lock>Rock but couldn’t tell from the clues whether it was a drive to box or a walking box, and I knew that I wasn’t doing any more walking than I had already planned for this day so I also passed this one up for later. When I got home, I found that the other box there had been pulled because there was some park damage from flooding and it is supposed to be replaced so I will wait till it is back to complete these two.

I had a wonderful boxing day with wonderful boxing weather and don’t know just how I will ever top it.