A Weekend with Milkmonster

It had been quite a while since we had been fortunate enough to have the Milkmonster stay with us and I was looking forward to this weekend with my beautiful grandson. Lately, it seems that he is growing as I watch him and I am already mourning the end of his innocent baby days while trying to enjoy every second that is left. I picked him up on Friday evening and had the entire weekend planned out for us but it seemed that he had some different plans. After his bath, while we were enjoying watching his current favorite tv character, Elmo (or as Milkmonster calls him "Melmo") on the TV in my bedroom, Nicholas calmly threw up all over himself, me and the bed. And this began the night's routine of vomit, clean up the Milkmonster, change the bedding and wait for the next attack. The poor little guy was so exhausted after each of these episodes that he would just lay there for about a half hour, unmoving but not sleeping. We were up all night. When morning finally came with about three hours of sleep for each of us, I knew that we would be spending the day at home just recuperating. However, by Sunday morning, he appeared to be well on the road to recovery so we decided to do some light letterboxing.

As we were leaving our development, we spotted something really strange along the side of the road - not your normal brown bunny chomping contentedly on grass but instead, a coal black bunny looking around observantly. Hmmmm..... was this perhaps the Easter Bunny checking out the local children?

After this, our first letterboxing stop was for the WAP-O Campfire 60th Anniversary Box by Evilmommy. I had been there once before but the snow had been covering the hiding spot for this box and I was happy that I could return with the Milkmonster. What a surprise to find that we were first finders, something which has ceased to be a goal for me, and that there was a first finder prize of one of my favorite letterboxing things - a patch! I did allow the Milkmonster to hold it on the drive to the next stop but I made very sure that he gave it back so that I could add it to my collection.

This box ended our search for Evilmommy's boxes since the Immobile One and I had also driven to Adamstown a few days ago to visit one of our favorite seasonal ice cream shops, Boehringers, which just happens to be right down the street from The Adamstown Area Library Box . Gee, what a coincidence! OK, Evilmommy - time to hide some more goodies!

From the Campfire box, Milkmonster and I headed for Blue Marsh and the park ranger office to see if by any chance, they still had the Silent Doug box which had floated out of its hiding spot after last June's flooding. If you remember, it had been found and turned in at the office. Unfortunately, the park ranger, who was extremely nice, said he didn't recall ever seeing this box turned in. He was very familiar with letterboxing and geocaching and told me that since we have to have permits for these hidings, the park is very careful to keep anything related to them. He could find no record of it ever being turned in but promised to email the rest of the staff to see if they could recall anything.

We decided to visit the Dry Brooks Day area at Blue Marsh and when there, Milkmonster and I headed to the playground. The day was blustery and cold by the water but Milkmonster was so happy to be outside and running around. What a relief to see that he was feeling well enough to be his active little boy self. When we became too cold to stay out too much longer, we hopped in the car and went to check on my own box, Laura's Childhood Luvs - Poky Little Puppy . Milkmonster was able to stamp into this box and then learned a new letterboxing term. He had found his first HH. After carrying it around for a few minutes as he poked into every little hidey hole or nook and cranny in the area, I figured I had better retrieve it or it would disappear into one of those holes. But Milkmonster was happy enough to exchange it for his log book. He just wanted to have something to carry around like his Mimser.

Not more than five minutes after we were in the car, I peaked into my rear view mirror and saw that my little guy was in dreamland. I guess the lack of sleep from Friday night and the cold fresh air and exercise had caught up with him and our letterboxing was finished for the day. Notice - he is still clutching that log book and held it till I carried him, still sleeping, into the house.
PS: Good news on Silent Doug's Cardinal box at Blue Marsh - I just received a phone call from one of the employees there who said that she still had it and that there will be three park rangers working on Easter Sunday. I will be able to go and rehide this on Sunday. Can you believe that they held onto this for almost 9 months! I love this park as much as I dislike French Creek!