Rocks, Docks and Locks - Day 2 Continued

So I head north to the town which provides a ferry into Kingston. By now the rain had stopped but it was still pretty dreary out. I got on the ferry and was greatly amused that I was accompanied by only one other car and a bicyclist. The first leg of the ferry took me to Wolfe Island and the Canadian border. Almost like magic, my cell phone switched to roaming charges as soon as we hit the shore of the Canadian island. And here is where I had to go through customs which actually was kind of interesting. I suppose the customs people are trained to ask certain questions and the answers may trigger new questions. My agent asked me why I was coming to Canada and I ended up explaining letterboxing to her and giving her a copy of the little Atlas Quest letterboxing card which I place in my planted boxes. She never even looked at anything in my car, maybe being a middle aged white woman driving an SUV didn't seem particularly threatening to her. I then began leg two of the ferry journey from Wolfe Island to Kingston. Judy, Sewsowbizzy, sent me this picture of the first sight of Kingston from the Wolfe Island ferry. From the customs gate I drove right into the streets of Kingston. Wow, I could almost feel the history as soon as I entered. This was one of the most enchanting cities I have ever visited. It was clean, very, very clean and friendly and it exuded an aura of history everywhere I went. I decided that my first stop would be at the Marine Museum and the Alexander Henry. I saw the signs welcoming the Rocks, Docks and Locks participants as soon as I pulled into the parking lot and went into the museum to meet Norasta, Guitarzan, Butterfly5 and Mr. Butterfly5. What a warm welcome it was too. I was presented with the official packet and was really pleased to see a wonderfully prepared booklet with all updated clues for all of the boxes in the area. They were separated by area and within each area, they were actually in order so that you could go from one to the next without backtracking. And one of the most wonderful things about the book is that the font was large enough that I didn't have to wear my glasses to read it. I found out that I was too early to settle into the ship yet so I chose to look for a couple of boxes at the Royal Military College. Here I suffered my first Canadian boxing culture shock as I found that many of the boxes are hidden along the water in the rocks themselves. It became almost amusing to see how many different ways the clues described just which rock to look for - and they were always accurate! This first set of boxes which I looked for was the R.M.C. Series by Weezee. I got to the site of the third box and thought "you want me to climb down there???". Well, I did and was rewarded with my first waterfront box, all the time watching out for snakes who just might resent my sharing their lovely rocks. After finding three of the five in this series, I headed back to check into the ship. The Alexander Henry was exactly as Norasta had described it in the event listing - "rustic but a lot more interesting than a Motel 6". This proved to be the second time that day when I was really happy that Bill didn't accompany me. The first time was during our morning phone conversation when I told him that I had found 14 boxes in New York and he agreed that I wouldn't have found that many if he had been along. This time, however, I was happy to be alone when I saw how narrow the bunks were and I knew that I would have been awarded the top one. The rooms were very sparse, containing only the beds with some built in storage under them, a closet, a sink and a folding chair. However, this proved to be more than enough for the time spent in them. As I was checking in, the girl manning the check in office handed me a note from Yankeechik who had also arrived that afternoon and was looking for someone to explore with. She left a cell phone number but since I am too cheap to pay $.69 a minute for using the cell in Canada, I figured I would just run into her later than day. I just didn't know how soon that would happen.

After depositing all of my belongings in my cabin and requesting help in learning how to flush the toilet which was in the common bathroom shared by all the people on the first level of the ship, I decided to head towards Norasta's local shop boxes, a series that she had hidden with stamps by several different carvers in local shops and which were only a few blocks away so were totally walkable. At this time I also did something that was totally unJanlike - I left my camera packed. As I headed away from the dock, I saw a woman with a backpack coming towards the ship. I ventured a guess and was rewarded with a friendly smile from Yankeechik. We quickly compared notes and decided to try to find a member of The Royal Family. We went to a local pub which was described in the clues and which turned out to be tiny, crowded and humid and hot beyond belief. We hated to disturb the bartender to ask for our little box since he was so busy, but being the good letterboxers that we are, we did. He, however, knew nothing about it but did ask another person who had just joined him behind the bar and fortunately for us, she did know about it and handed it to us, not exactly sure what the protocol was here. We explained to her and happily stamped Chuck into our logbooks.

Kimberlee, aka Yankeechik, had already looked for the first two of the Shop Local, Shop Small series and had been disappointed to find out that these shops had closed at 5 but undaunted, we decided to try for the other four. We were rewarded with three of the four. The first one, the Kingston LB was hidden in a windy little charming pathway behind the stores in this section of town. We stamped in and moved on to Where the Wild Things Are by Trailfeathers which we found in a quaint book store. Fortunately for us, these boxes were all known by the shopkeepers so we didn't have to practice any stealth maneuvers. Then we headed to one of the most unique shops I have ever been in. It was a record shop, very tiny and almost impassible because of the thousands and thousands of old albums this shopkeeper had collected. He happily told us about the fact that records were coming back into fashion, that CDs were still the music of choice but that more people were beginning to appreciate the sound of a record. I have to admit that I was rather worried that we would never find the box that we were searching for here, but Kimberlee soon located the long legs of Tina Turner.

We realized at this point that it was getting late and that we needed to eat something so we stopped for some pizza and sat on a curb beside one of the many old stone churches populating downtown Kingston to eat. We watched a group of four college age kids across the street carry an armchair to the front of the restaurant there and ask a man to take their picture as they all piled into it. When they were finished, they picked up the chair and began heading down the street. Shortly after this, another group of four kids walked up to the same restaurant with their arm chair and asked the same man to take their picture and then walked with their armchair down the street. As we watched the proceedings, Kimberlee laughingly made the comment "and they think what we do is strange!" I couldn't have agreed more! At this point, we made our way back to the ship and did our personal exchanges before retiring at the end of this wonderful Day 2 of the Rocks, Docks and Locks experience.