A Weekend of Firsts

Last Friday afternoon I had an early out from work and since the day was sunny and warm, what else could I do with my free time but letterbox! And since I was in a good mood, I decided to visit French Creek, a park I normally shun with every ounce of my being. French Creek State Park is only about 6 miles from my house and is one of the only long walk areas in all of Berks County and although the park is a really nice one, I have a lot of trouble with the trails. They are rocks. Not trails, just rocks and then some more rocks and if that isn't enough you can always find some more rocks. And once I got to the park I made a really terrible discovery, I had grabbed the wrong pair of boots to bring along. I have two pairs, one is a really comfortable pair and has been wonderful on almost any tough walk that I have taken, the other was the first pair I ever bought and were only good for walking on fairly level trails. And things started out pretty well as I searched for Lightnin' Bug's new crop circle box, Nexus. The first thing I found at the beginning of this walk was this pretty little view of the spillway for the lake. I felt it was a good start to the afternoon when I saw this. I then proceded to the area where I felt the box might be, in fact, I was pretty sure that it should be there and I walked back and forth over the area at least a dozen times. No box. So I moved up the trail a bit and found an area that could fit the clues but didn't seem as close as my first site. Again, no box. So I decided to move back to my first spot and check it out again. I walked back and forth again and this time I ended up on my hands and knees as I tripped over some branches. My bad boots were beginning their job of causing my feet to ache and making my feet heavy. So I got up and saw that my knees and elbows now matched my grandson's little skinned ones. But, the good news is that I saw the box location as I was sitting there. And the even better news was that I was first finder of a mystery box in a park that I am not crazy about walking in.

From Nexus, I moved to another area of the park to look for boxes left after the Pennsylvania Invasion. Team New Hampshire had hidden a set of six very nicely carved boxes for us to find in their Remnants of the Invasion series. The only thing that I have to say about Team New Hampshire is that those little aliens sure do have some good hiking skills to get up the hill that the series is planted on. What a workout that was! Once again I was first finder but I did miss a box and have to go back and look for it again but by this time, my boots were causing me so much pain that I could hardly hobble back to my car. I pulled them off immediately and as soon as I got home, I threw them in the trash so that there would be no more chance of grabbing them by mistake.

I went home and rested my poor bruised feet until Saturday morning. We had to go to western Maryland to pick up Bill's aunt so we made a little detour to look for the new box from Brandy, our Connecticutt visitor, Jennie . This teensy, tinsy little box was in an area of this town that even interested the Immobile One. Barney, leader of Team Little Dog, was with us and, of course, he was also very, very interersted.....or maybe he was interested in the other doggie smells. Whatever the story, we all enjoyed this one and guess what - we were first finders!