The Delaware Games

Finally the weekend of the games had arrived and I was off bright and early on Thursday morning. I had actually planned on doing a couple of non-games boxes on my way down . We had not been able to get one of the Kent County Coastal boxes on Sunday, Sambo's, because the restaurant was not open on Sunday . And, as is my habit, I was off and on my way at 4 in the morning and it certainly wasn't open then either. So I stopped and picked up Hikers 'n Hounds I-95 Drive by: Chesapeake House first. It was a little scary doing this one in the dark but when I found the box and sat up on my little hill surveying the rest stop with its lights, it was actually kind of neat. And, yes, I know I already had the stamp from the Road Rally but I like to check off listed boxes on the list and now one more could be legally removed. From here, I proceded to the Carters in Bear Bridges of the C & O Canal, North Side and was able to watch the sun come up over the Chesapeake Bay. I also managed to startle not one, but two herons, as I drove along looking for the correct landmarks.Now that daylight had arrived, I could begin the games. First stop was to find the Crown Stone which marked the spot of the Kent Western letterbox. Judy had included a lot of history in her boxes which added to the fun of them. I was very familiar with the M*D* history but was totally unaware of these Crown Stones.


From here I headed to Sambo's and was really disappointed when I saw what a neat place it was, that I hadn't been able to eat crabs there. Next on my list was the Sailing the Sussex Shores series. After looking for a boat in the air and a missing lighthouse, I headed for the Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge. By this time, the skies were darkening tremendously and I asked the elderly lady who was manning (or womanning) the information desk if a storm was expected. "Oh, honey," she told me, "you go and take your walk, you will be fine." So I set off to find the box at the observation platform. One thing I hadn't thought would happen on a Thursday afternoon with rather unpleasant weather was that there would be other people around. Well, when I reached the platform, there were three bird watchers already there. What to do! Well, I walked to the steps, sat down and tied my shoe, and casually reached under the steps for the box. And it was there! Fortunately there was a bench nearby and I was able to stamp in while looking as though I was writing in a journal. But how to return it without looking suspicious. Actually, they helped me out by inviting me up on the platform, where I took the picture below. They had a tremendously big telepscope and they let me look through it at the blue heron they were watching. And when I finished with them, it was just coincidence that my other shoe was open and I needed to sit on the step to tie it.
From here I headed to Killens Pond to check into my cabin, but I was not allowed to physically get into it until 3, so I set off on other Games adventures, heading down the road just a bit to find the Kent Central box at Brown's Ranch park.

As I was heading south to work on the exCLUsion boxes, I saw a site which rang a bell in my tired brain - the Gap store. Quickly I rifled through my stack of clues and found what I was looking for, the Sussex: Remember When series. So I made a quick decision to stop for this one first and tackle the restaurant series in the morning. My bike remained buried under all of the camping gear which I hadn't yet unloaded which was a real shame because this was the perfect trail to test drive. The path was wide, smooth, and level but I had to walk instead of ride. I was able to easily find the first three boxes but I do have to admit that I was unsure about what a Baldwin bench was before I began this series. The pic here is a Baldwin bench. Mystery solved.

By the time I got to box number four in this series I was ready to call it a day, but the clues encouraged me to continue and finish that night. The clues read...."eventually, but not so far, you will reach the END of the state game lands".....OK, I thought, I can do that. Just one more little walk. So I took what I thought was a fairly long walk and came upon this site and sign. 3200 feet one way is more than a half mile. "Not so far" she had said - Judy was the mistress of understatement on this box. One mile later, I returned to my car and wearily drove back to the cabin. I still had to unload all of my things and settle into the cabin. And I was a little unhappy to find that there were no lights on the trail leading to the cabin. In addition, it was beginning to rain. I hurried and got everything dumped into the cabin and began exploring and was very pleased with what I found. It was a really neat little cabin, sleeps four, had a small kitchen, very nice bathroom with a powerful shower. But the best thing of all was that the bed was very, very comfortable and I made good use of it that night.

I woke up about two in the morning, and heard the rain pounding on the roof. Oh well, I thought, there were five more hours till daylight and maybe it will rain itself out. But when I woke again and prepared to go out to begin my boxing day, the rain had actually increased. And the wind had begun to blow. I went back in and reevaluated my plans for the day, settling on starting with the drive bys and doing the walking boxes later in the day when I hoped the rain would stop. I started with the Dining Around series, a group of six boxes in and around restaurants with restaurant stamps. The stamps were wonderful and the rain and wind got harder. Then I decided to double check to see if the Puzzle Fun was really missing or just missed. This box was right off of the boardwalk and it did indeed appear to be missing. I thought, foolishly, that I would go up on the boardwalk to take some pictures. After getting blown off the boardwalk one time, I managed to hunker into the doorway of a building and snap these shots.

After spending the rest of the day battling the weather and collecting all of the drivebys that were on the list, I figured I would head back to the cabin and catch up on my logging on my spreadsheets and download my pictures and just rest. But a phone call with Sewsowbizzy changed those plans. She asked me to join them at Taste that evening for dinner and when I hemmed and hawed, she threw a zinger that I couldn't resist. She said, "What if I told you there was a box there?" Well, it turned out that I was really glad that I went because I had a wonderful time in spite of almost blowing away on my walk from my car to the restaurant. This is one of my favorite pictures of my whole weekend. And, if anyone is having a drought and searching for a rainmaker, just schedule a gathering and invite me - I guarantee it will rain.
After dinner, I made my way back north. The rain had stopped by then but the winds were still blowing strongly. I had hopes that the next day I would be able to get some of the boxes which required hiking.

The next morning I headed to Holt's Landing to complete two of the walking boxes on the Southeast Road Trip series. My first clue that this was going to be a tough walk should have come when I pulled into the parking lot and saw a dozen wind surfers on the Indian River whose boats were almost laying sideways in the water. I got out of my car and the wind physically pushed me to the trail. Then I found my next obstacle, the trail was totally under water with no way to get around it. The little turtle in the picture below was actually right in the middle of the trail. He was happy but I was not. Back to the car to look at the maps and I saw that I may be able to get to the boxes by another route. So I headed to the other end of the park and pulled into an area which looked like it would be a safe parking area. Hmmmm, there was a car already there...and it had a notebook which looked like letterboxing clues on the dash. Wonder who it is? I started walking and ran into Wisconsin Hiker and Martini Man heading out. They assured me that the boxes were reachable from this end of the park but warned me that the trails were under water at my next stop, the James Farm Ecological Preserve. It took me awhile to find these boxes, I am not good at doing things out of order but I did succeed and left for James Farm. Fortunately, I found these boxes fairly easily and the ironic thing is that the trails had dried out by then. It seems that the sandy soil drains fairly quickly so I was a happy walker. I was even happier when I approached the parking lot and saw two people getting out of a Rav4 with a bunch of papers in their hands. I got to meet Psychiker and Syner before the event, my first meeting of new boxers while on the trail in almost 700 boxes.

Next stop was at the Trap Pond State Park to locate the Cypress Ciphers . Here I made a very foolish decision, I decided to ride my bike. Although this was a trail which allowed bikes, an inexperienced biker riding on a windy, wet trail is not a pretty site. I am so happy that there was no one around to see me make a fool of myself. But I did locate the boxes and the bike did go faster than walking so it was not all in vain.

Next stop was the Redden State Forest for the Forest Finds series. I was the only one in this park and I started off in search of a "clock" which was my first landmark when my cell phone rang. When I answered it, I heard a very upset Hikers 'n Hounds on the other end. I sat down on the platform which was in front of the clock to hear her tell me that horrible story of the accident from the night before which took the life of Laura aka Death Moose. Laura is the 12 year old daughter of one of our hiking friends, Sheba, who was supposed to join us that day for the gathering. Well, needless to say, the joy of boxing was gone. It seemed so silly to be hunting little boxes in the woods when our friend was going through every parent's worst nightmare. I sat there after the phone call, trying to figure out what to do. I knew that I couldn't do anything to help Sheba that day and that to turn around and go home would do nothing to help anyone so I decided to continue on and meditate and think about my few times around Laura. I found the first box and opened it to find that Otis' Friends who had been first finders, had logged about the death of Otis, their dog, the day that they found this box. I logged a brief entry about the news that I had just heard and hoped that future finders would not be too horrified to read about two deaths in a logbook. It took me a long time to leave the woods of Redden and during the time that I was there, I called my Laura and Bill to tell them I loved them, received a call from Lightning Bug and made a call to Sewsowbizzy. There was comfort in talking to family and friends even though there was nothing that any of us could do.

I did make one more stop that day, to Abbotts Pond, to finish up the Cross County series and then headed back to my cabin, to think, to organize, and to rest. It's funny how tired I felt after hearing the news.

The next morning, I packed up and headed to the other end of the park for my final series of boxes for the Games. There I ran into Warcat who accompanied me on the search for the Killens Pond State Park boxes. We found what we could and headed for the pavilion and the get together. Slowly people began to arrive and I was very glad to be in the company of Hikers 'n Hounds, Sewsowbizzy, MizScarlet and Cyclonic - all friends of Sheba. Being together was very comforting and we talked in snippets about our thoughts and memories as we helped Judy to continue with the gathering. I have posted my pictures from the actual gathering on the event page on Atlas Quest at It's Just a Game .