New Friends and New Boxes

After my 6.5 miles on Saturday, when I got up on Sunday morning, I was really wondering if I would be able to handle the eight boxes which I had planned on searching with Sherry from Dogs with Wings. I was a bit stiff and moving a little slower than I wanted to. I was meeting Sherry at Reservoir Park in York to search for Pengy, a box placed by a fairly new boxer, the Royal Fish, in my home town of York, PA. When I was growing up, I had sledded on the hill in this park so I was really anxious to go return home to see if all was as I remembered. Sherry arrived and I was telling her that we were going to be joined later in the day by the Crayola Posse and that we would also be meeting the planter of this box. As I was telling her about this, who should appear a few hours earlier than I expected to see them but my friends, True Indigo and RGBisMe. Pengy was a great box for us to get warmed up for our day. I don't remember ever walking through the park before, I think I just sledded down the hill. Things didn't look anything like I remembered, except the hill itself. This little park was obviously really popular with dog walkers who were running loose. This would not normally be a big problem, especially for Sherry and me, but today we were privileged to be walking with Birbanto, the letterboxing cat! Here, Sherry is making the acquaintance of Birbanto under the watchful eyes of Momma, True Indigo, and Pappa, RGBisMe.

From Reservoir Park, we headed for William Kain Park and Nixon Park in southern York for a whole slew of boxes. We were first finders for E man's new box, just posted last night, Baseball Buddy . We also searched for another E man box, Blast Off. This talented young man seems to have already captured the skill needed to make a wonderful stamp. We also found a box belonging to a friend of E man, Journey Man. We then picked up a number of Wilson5186 boxes in these two parks, including Gone Fishin, The Black Bear, The Whitetail Buck and my favorite walk of the day The Great Horned Owl. We got to walk on a boardwalk, one of my all time favorite things in the woods.

At one point, we had to make a quick stop as Sherry tried to coax an exchange out of a friendly garter snake in the middle of the parking lot. After she couldn't get one from him, she crossed the parking lot to his buddy and again, was unable to get an exchange. I was really happy when she used my walking stick to move both of the snakes off of the road and out of my site. Another phobia for Jan - snakes.



But my absolute favorite part of this day was our get together with The Royal Fish and her sons, E man and TNT. This is a fairly new family to letterboxing and they were so eager to learn everything that they could from us. Their boxes were almost perfect boxes and we offered a few things which we thought might make them better, such as not placing a plastic bag on the outside of the boxes, and they were so happy. They threw themselves with gusto into exchanges, especially enjoying exchanging with our four legged hiking companion! They were already schooled in the art of personal travelers and I have to admit to being embarrassed that they had found the answer to my PT and I had forgotten to bring it along with me. And after accompanying us on one of our box searches, they and Sherry were introduced to the cootie game,much to the boys' delight! It was such a pleasure to meet this family, to box with old friends, and to return home for a few hours.

Girls Day March 2007

It was a long week at work, a very, very long week, and I was definitely looking forward to Pink Panther's and my next Girls Day on Saturday. We had planned on visiting Jacobsburg Environmental Education Center to search for two series - the M.C. Escher Series by Indigo Vulture and the two box Jacobsburg series by Silent Doug. The most visited site on my work computer this week was Weatherbug because the weather for Saturday was not looking pretty and I kept hoping that if I monitored it really close, it would improve. Friday proved to be a rain drenched day and my thought was that it was getting the rain out of its system and none would be left for Saturday. The thing is that every time Mary and I plan a Girls Day, it rains. I automatically throw a raincoat into my pack when I know that I am boxing with her - that and an extra set of batteries since being with Mary seems to always drain the power out of all the batteries I am using!

It rained hard all night Friday and I contentedly listened to it, sure that there could be no more rain left for our Saturday. However, when I got up on Saturday morning, it was still raining. And when Mary came to pick me up, it was still drizzling. And on our drive to Wind Gap, we had intermittent showers. However, when we got to the park and were preparing all of the rain gear to take along with us, we realized that IT HAD STOPPED RAINING! In fact, it actually was clearing up! It was a miracle! But of course, we carried those rain coats along with us - knowing our record, we were not sure it would last.

As we began our walk, we soon saw a tree which could win the Ugly Tree award-in this forest or any other for that matter! However, as we moved on to find the stamp series, we were very delighted to see how wonderful they were, definitely not the winners of any Ugly Stamp awards. The details in these stamps were wonderful and Mr. M. C. Escher would have been proud to see how Indigo Vulture represented his art. We were first finders in three of the five boxes and hope that more people make the trip to Jacobsburg to enjoy this wonderful group of boxes in an absolutely beautiful park.

After finishing the Escher series, we moved to the opposite side of the park to search for Silent Doug's two box series. I had found the first of these two on Christmas Eve 2005 and had to give up on the second one because the trail was a sheet of ice. We found the first box and as we started for the second one, my stomach began to jump again at the memory of this walk. Even on this beautiful day (yes, the weather was still wonderful), it was an eerie walk. Both Mary and I have a phobia about heights and this trail contributed strongly to our fears. My photos don't really convey the fact that this trail goes along the side of the mountain with a fairly sheer drop on the one side. After a bit of coaxing, Mary convinced me to stand between these two trees on a trail which is obviously washing out and has been braced to keep it from disappearing . What you can't see is the sharp drop into the little valley. Below is a picture of Mary gamely hanging on to a tree and not looking down!

We finally found the bridge which led to the trail which led away from this scary trail and Mary did one of her tricks of picking a box out of the middle of a seemingly impossible setting. She had to do it because another one of my phobias was causing me a bit of panic. The box turned out to be at the base of this tree covered with my big fear in the woods - poison ivy. Large, hairy, disgusting, repulsive hairy ropes of poison ivy. I was so happy that she was willing to retrieve this box because this was the one which I had not located on that Christmas Eve. Now my half stamp had a mate since it took both stamps to make the complete picture. We lingered here for a little while in preparation for making our return trip on the same scary trail but this time we had another one of our mutual fears realized because we had to travel this trail in reverse and DOWNHILL.

In order not to dwell on this double whammy for us, we tried to figure out what the ribbons and numbers on the trees along the trail were for. Anyone have any thoughts?

When we got back to the car, we were rather pleasantly surprised. Mary had received a GPS for her birthday and is playing with it to learn how to use it. (I received mine the day after I made my first trip to Jacobsburg and still don't know how to use it!) The one thing which Mary has conquered is tracking the miles that we walked. We discovered that we had walked 6.5 miles in this beautiful park on a beautiful day. And, as we started driving back home - the rain began to make its appearance again. What timing!

Sunday in the Snow

As they say - the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Such was my weekend. Bill's aunt has been staying with us this week and we were going to take her back home to Cumberland, MD, on Saturday. I had planned on stopping for JBZfarm's Holy Turnpike Letterbox on the way to Cumberland . Sunday was supposed to have been spent in York, meeting some new boxers and searching for their boxes. But that darn weatherman had other plans for our weekends. We were fortunate to be able to return Aunt Dotty on Saturday. In fact, we were so surprised to find that at 9 in the morning, the turnpike was totally cleared and actually dry in most spots. Quite the opposite of what we expected. In addition, it was a real treat to see that almost all of the cars that were traveling on the turnpike were totally cleared of ice and snow. Although my personal opinion of the new law demanding cleared cars after a snow is that it is totally unenforceable, I nevertheless welcome its demands. My dad had taught us when we were learning to drive that all the snow must be removed from our vehicles before we were allowed to take them out after a snow and it is something which has always stuck with me. That and the fact that a half tank of gas is almost the same as an empty one. One of my sisters actually panics when her gas tank marker reaches the half way point. I am not that bad, but I am uncomfortable with it. Thanks Dad!

We made it safely to Cumberland without stopping at the Holy Turnpike box but I was able to make one addition to my F count at the Flat Tire box, Sideling Hill . The snow was about a foot deep in front of the box but the box was safe and sound. Then on Sunday morning, I was really getting restless to be outside, especially since it was sunny and bright. It definitely was not a day to stay inside, in spite of the snow. Fortunately for me, there was a new series planted within the last few weeks in nearby Hamburg and it appeared that these might be fairly easily accessible boxes. The Immobile One even got into the mood to get out of the house and agreed to chauffeur me on my quest. Each box for the From One Flake to Another series contained the clues to the next one so I was not sure where our wanderings would take us. It began close to one of our favorite restaurants so after stamping into the first box, we went back to Cracker Barrel for a hearty breakfast and then headed across the street and spent a glorious hour wandering through the Cabela's wonderland. After we had filled our heads with dreams of material possessions that we just had to have, we resumed our search for the next three boxes. After locating number two, we made a wrong turn to find the third box and the Immobile One had reached his tolerance level for letterboxing. After reminding me about how silly it was to be out digging in the snow, and getting a bit (ok, a lot) aggravated with me because I wasn't ready to call it a day, I received a really timely phone call from Sheba. She and Cyclonic were also out on the search . So I was able to defend myself even more by showing the Immobile One that I was not nuts, there were lots of people out. But he wasn't buying it so we took him home and I went back to Hamburg and happily resumed my search. The series takes place along a beautiful section of the Schuylkill River, made even more beautiful by the snow. I never knew there was a canal in the Hamburg area till I did these boxes. And the really neat thing about completing the series was the first finders prize in the final box. It was a cold weather kit consisting of Chapstick, tissues and moisturizing lotion. How perfect for the type of series and the type of day that it was.


From the Snowflake boxes, I headed for another of Ladysg's new boxes, the Littlest Dragon. Once again, the views from this box were so beautiful that it was worth the foot of snow that I had to wade through to reach the box. And I was so happy to have had the opportunity to get out and have some fun. I owe Ladysg a big thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Back in the Saddle Again

When I had written my story about our cruise, I tried to tell the good things about our vacation but left out the fact that both Bill and I returned with terrible colds. In fact, we had been pretty much confined to our cabins for a full day on Wednesday of our cruise and had to cut our Grand Cayman visit short because we felt pretty lousy. Till we were on our way home on Sunday, mine had turned to bronchitis again. The flight back was the most painful flying I had ever done due to the pain in my ears from all of the congestion. Then both Bill and I spent the entire week trying to kick this bug - lucky for him, he was able to sleep all the time but I needed to work each day so when I came home I was right in bed myself. Yesterday was a beautiful, warm, sunshiny day and once again I was spending it in bed. Well, when this morning started out with bright sunshine, I knew that I had to get outside, I just couldn't take another day of laying in bed. Yesterday, when I was catching up on local new boxes, I was heartbroken to read about the loss of Dodge, one of two of Sherry and Lee's boys of the Dogs with Wings team. Sherry had planted two boxes called Farewell to Dodge in Dodge's honor and I decided that they looked to be just the right ones for me today - not too strenuous but definitely much more than a driveby. I got to the Binky Lee Preserve (don't you just love that name) and worked my way around the preserve, agreeing with Sherry that this would have been the perfect place for a dog heaven. The two boxes which are there again show Sherry's mastery of carving and I am very proud to have been the first finder on these boxes and to have them added to my collection.

As I was finishing up at Binky Lee, my daughter called and told me that she was looking for something to do that would get Milkmonster out of the house and running around for a while. She decided that a letterbox might be just the thing to do that. She searched Atlas Quest and LBNA for a while and decided that the best box to look for might just be one of mine! How lucky could I get. I quickly drove to their house and followed them to Hibernia Park to do one of my boxes - Laura's Childhood Luvs - Strawberry Shortcake. This was a perfect park for Out of Sight to move freely without having to hang onto another person or a stroller. She and her guide dog were able to walk without any problems on the graveled trails here. However, because there was a large group of people and dogs in the park training to be Search and Rescue dogs, she did have some complications as she explained to many people that her "working dog" sign on her dog's harness was because she is blind - something which really stunned many people who would never have guessed because of the ease with which she was walking.

Lil Milkmonster and I were hiking partners ( what a terrible thing to happen to me!!!). He quickly decided to commandeer my walking stick and use it to sweep leaves from the sides of the trail on to the trail. Then he would use it to stab leaves and put them back along the side of the trail. Busy, busy, busy. He actually ended up walking almost a half mile on his own before he conked out and had to ride on Daddy's back.

The day turned out to be just what the doctor ordered for me. Time alone in the woods and then time with my favorite grandson - my little letterboxer in training.

Cruising the Western Caribbean

Saturday morning and our long awaited and planned vacation to the Western Caribbean was about to become reality. Our group of eight met at the organizer's home to begin our journey south on a really frigid morning. Unfortunately, the man who had originally suggested the cruise as a great way to celebrate the retirement of three of the men from Arkema, all with over 35 years of service , was unable to go with us due to the death of his brother on the day before we were to leave. His family made did make the trip with us though so we still had a good sized group to accompany us.Here we are at the Philadelphia airport waiting and waiting for our flight to take us to the warmer weather. Our plan was to get to Miami on Saturday and spend the night there before boarding the Carnival cruise ship, Liberty, on Sunday. I had picked out a few local driveby letterboxes in the area of the airport and the port but was not able to get to any of them due to timing issues. Guess I will have to make another trip to Florida to be able to add it to my list of states with boxes.

Here is the ship which we called home for a week.

And here we are with Miami behind us, ready to set sail.

Monday night was the first dress up night. Here we are at the Captain's cocktail party and later we attended the Captain's dinner.

Tuesday was our first stop at Costa Maya Mexico. We had decided to bypass the excursions in Mexico in favor of visiting the town and getting a feel for Mexico. However, what we were not prepared for was that this town was only a shopping center used by cruise ships. The only way to visit anything else was to get a bus. At least we got some exercise walking from the ship into the town.

The town was very colorful and the merchants were definitely into bartering. It was hard to know when to accept a price as being rock bottom. Personally, the bartering became a pain in the neck pretty quickly for me since I am not much of a shopper. Laura had asked for a Mexican blanket so we bought that and a few t shirts and baseball caps and headed back to the ship.

Definitely in contrast to Costa Maya was the well developed Grand Cayman island which we visited on Thursday. A friend who is a frequent cruiser had warned us that the prices here were very high and he was right. In fact, the American dollar was worth a whole lot less here than anywhere else we went. When we made purchases, the prices on our receipts were very different from the prices marked on menus and price tags so it was hard to guess how much we were spending ahead of time.We did get to visit Margaritaville - and it was definitely five o'clock there all the time! There are actually two letterboxes in Grand Cayman but again, time restrictions prevented us from looking for them, much to Bill's relief.

This was the formal dining room where we had dinner each night and the service was absolutely unbelievable. We had the same waiters each night. They had asked our names on the first night and after that, they addressed us by name every time they spoke to us. Our table was at the bottom of the steps on the left side, directly beside the little serving table. Each night the waiters performed a little show for us, usually on the steps so we had a wonderful view. Everything that you have ever heard about the food on a cruise is absolutely true - the food was excellent. I had made up my mind to try something new each time it was offered and I did get a wide variety of new foods. My favorite was gazpacho. Escargot was offered one evening and that was the only new food which I couldn't bring myself to order.

In addition to the formal dining rooms, there were a group of counters outside, around the pools offering different foods. There was a pizza counter, a buffet for each meal, a deli, a counter which offered a food of a different nationality each day, an Asian counter and of course, a hot dog and burger counter. I only had a few foods which I didn't like - the scrambled eggs were a little gross and one of my new foods - eggs benedict - truly disgusted me. Other than those, I have to say that one of the best parts of the cruise was definitely the food.

This was the view in the interior center of the ship. It was very dark but I think you can see the different levels. There were two shops, one a general store type of place with sundries and souvenirs and the other a jewelry shop. We quickly found out that jewelry is one of the most available items to purchase on the ship and at all of the ports. In fact, there were even classes held which told you how to buy the jewelry and which shops were trustworthy and which offered guarantees. Since I am not a jewelry type of girl, these were pretty useless to me, especially once we visited a jewelry store in Grand Cayman which had armed guards and doberman pinchers walking around. We were rather amused to have a sales person give us prices on Hamilton watches from Lancaster, PA, at over $1200. His justification was that they were very comparable to a Rolex which sells for $6000! Yeah, right.

One of the other levels in this picture was dedicated almost entirely to the pictures which the ship takes all day long and then tries to sell. We must have had our picture taken 50 times while we were attending various functions and we ended up buying none of them.

Bill was delighted to find the karaoke bar the first night out to sea and he visited it often. Each night featured a search for a karaoke singer for a particular artist. The winners of the contest performed in a show in the big theatre on the final night at sea. Bill tried out on the Frank Sinatra night but came in second place. After he went to the final show, which I didn't make because it began at 10:30 at night, he admitted that he was relieved that he didn't win because the show was before a very large audience. The crew had told us that this Legends Karaoke show is normally the biggest draw of the entire week.

The third best part of the cruise after the food was the shows which were given in the big theatre - the Caribbean Lounge. They ranged from comedians to singers to Las Vegas type shows and were all wonderful. I managed to attend many of these since they were offered at two different times and I was able to stay awake for the early one.

This is a view of one of the pool areas and in the background is my favorite part of the whole trip - Ocho Rios, Jamaica. When you look at the pictures of Costa Maya and Grand Cayman, you can see how flat the land is. Jamaica was absolutely gorgeous from this first site of it to the last one. The mountains there were green and covered with tropical trees and I fell in love with the area even before I set foot on it.

Then when we got on the land and met the people, who all seemed to be tall, thin and beautiful, I was even more entranced. Here a group of island women performed for us on the beach prior to our visit to Dunns Falls River. There were little dances and songs going on all day on the beach. The people were soft spoken and always had a smile on their faces.

Here is a view of the top part of the Dunns Falls River. We had booked an excursion to walk up the falls and were prepared to walk along a trail beside the falls, much like you do at Bushkill Falls. Boy, were we in for a surprise as we found out that you actually go to the bottom of the falls and climb up them - IN the water. It was so much fun! We had a guide who graciously obliged us by carrying my camera and taking pictures at every stop along the way.

Hey, Mary, recognize the bathing suit!

This was our view most of the way up the falls, there was series after series of little falls to traverse. It took us about an hour and a half to climb and I was almost appreciating the climb that Sheba and I had taken on Haycock Mountain a few weeks ago as a precursor to this trip. I felt even better about the condition I was in as most of the other members of our group retired early that night because they hadn't had that much exercise in years and I was feeling pretty good.

We went up the falls in groups, usually in a human chain. Here is a picture of Bill as he is attempting to climb up and catch up with the group.

My parting view of Ocho Rios - and hopefully, not my last view of it. I am already planning a week long visit to the island in 2008.

This was us at our second formal night on Saturday - Mary, recognize the dress!?

We got back to Miami on Sunday morning but our plane wasn't scheduled to leave until late Sunday afternoon so we booked a tour of the Everglades. We got to ride in an airboat through the glades and the alligators and the crocodiles and it was really neat.

This guy was actually named - he is Monster, one of the largest alligators in this particular area of the Everglades. When we first spotted him, he was gliding through the water carrying a piece of wood. We were told that they actually build homes in tunnels under the land in the Everglades. Our guide gave us a pretty amazing statistic. If you walk through the Everglades, you have more of a chance of catching a disease from cuts from the sawgrass which grows there and walking through the dirty water than of being attacked by one of the 1.2 million alligators and crocodiles there. We went to a show after the boat ride and the trainer had actually trained a croc and an alligator to come when he called their names. And he fed them by hand with his face about a foot away from their snapping jaws - not a job that I would like.

Since we have been home, everyone has asked me how we liked our cruise and I have to admit most of the time, I was pretty bored. I guess I am more at ease in the woods and also more entertained there. One of the things which we did right was to get a room with a balcony. I spent a lot of time there reading because laying around a pool all day with hundreds of people around is not my idea of a fun time. Walking around decks with a view of miles and miles of ocean on one side and the walls of the ship on the other provided needed exercise but was not as rewarding as walking through the woods. I was also surprised and disappointed that we didn't see one beautiful sunrise or sunset. There was a haze over the horizon most of the time which blocked any colors from shining through. Of course, there were highlights, Ocho Rios was my favorite one but as a whole, it was not exactly what I was hoping for in a vacation. It was an experience which I am glad that I had but not one that I plan on repeating.