Black Friday - Did You Really Think I Went Shopping?

Black Friday - those words can still make me shudder. Even after almost 9 years away from the retail business, I still dread those words and make every effort to stay away from any retail establishment, not only on that day but on every day till the Christmas season is over. I, for one, was ecstatic to discover the joys of online shopping at this time of the year and the little bit of actual in person shopping which I do for the holidays is usually completed well before the Thanksgiving holiday. So, what is a person to do with a Black Friday which is a paid holiday at my present job? Well, for the past four Black Fridays, I have gone letterboxing. Surprise, surprise, surprise! This year I decided to head for the Bensalem area. And my first stop made me a new victim of the devious Kite and Key box by Cyclonic. I arrived at the proper location and began counting paces, steps and degrees. Failed the first time. Started the count all over again. Failed the second time. Tried one more time with a slight variation but three times did not prove to be the charm. Then I gave up on the counting and decided to just start looking for a likely hiding spot. Nada, nothing, zilch. Hmmm, not a good start to the day. But after spending over an hour on a box which I thought would be almost a driveby, I made the decision to give up. And boy, was that a difficult decision for me to make and I also kept my fingers crossed that it would not be an omen of things to come for the rest of the day. My luck got better as I traveled a little bit and found Cyclonic's new Topsy Turvey box. Nathan has become the poster boy for teeny tiny stamps lately and this has got to be one of the tiniest.

I then moseyed around the Bensalem area a bit to look for two Radetoan series. The Radetoan's are a new letterboxing family in the area and I was really happy to say that I found all of their The Super Series and two of the four Creepy Crawler Series before my shoes became too saturated by the swampy condtions in the parks to continue. I am even happier to report that the carvings in these boxes were wonderful. I can hardly believe that these are some of their first carvings. Thanks, gang, I am looking forward to finding more of your boxes.

Neshaminy State Park was one Pennsylvania state park that I had never visited before. Cyclonic had placed the new Neshaminy Hitchhiker Hostel there and since I was loaded with hitchhikers (can you believe it!) I wanted to exchange a few. Cyclonic had told me that I would like this park, and he was right! It was exactly the opposite of my least favorite park in Pennsylvania, French Creek. Neshaminy was almost flat and the trails were virtually rock free. And the HHH was wonderful! I traded out three of my four and was able to actually place one of them in a subsequent box. But my favorite part of this park came as I was nearing the end of my walk and rounded the corner to the above view of the Philadelphia skyline. I am a nut about city skylines and one of my few joys about moving to Reading many years ago was that this town has a skyline also and seeing one so unexpectedly in a park was a real treat for me.

After this, I headed for the other nearby state park, Tyler, aka "Little Connecticut". Sadly, it was getting to be too late in the afternoon to do too much boxing so I made a quick trip to check on my own Elvis: TCB box. A few weeks ago I had received an email from JJ Malone, the planter of Anderson Cooper is Weeping in Tyler Park . She had searched for my Elvis box and in doing so had discovered the first Elvis box which had been placed there over two years ago. That box had gone missing so I had placed a new one in a slightly different location. JJ Malone had rescued the original box and placed it with the new box and I was able to enjoy the first log book. I placed that logbook along with the new one in the second box so that future finders could also enjoy it. By the time I walked down the trail to look for Anderson Cooper, the sun was beginning to drop too low in the sky to venture continuing on the trail for the other boxes that are there. Boy, I really do like boxing in this weather, no mosquitos, no gnats, no ticks, very little contact with poison, but the days are so, so short.

So, as you can see, my Black Friday was very enjoyable for me. I avoided the long check out lines. I didn't spend any money. I didn't boost the economy at all. But I ended the day with a very warm feeling of self satisfaction and accomplishment.