Boxing at the Beach

Every autumn, I take a mental health break and go away for several days alone.  I love being alone.  Don't get me wrong, I also love being with my family but alone time is a pure pleasure for me.  Most years, I go camping and spend the days touring whatever area I am in by letterboxing.  This year, I decided to head to Virginia Beach after I found a great deal which got me a hotel room a few feet from the boardwalk for a cheaper rate than the local campgrounds.  I have to admit that the thought of a bed and a shower were more appealing to me this time than my normal sleeping on an air mattress in the back of my SUV and cold showers in the communal shower rooms.  So I set off on the first morning and made good time, arriving in Virginia and my first planned stop for a box at a rest stop.  This first experience set the tone for me letterboxing failures the rest of the week.  I got out and nonchalantly headed in the direction that I thought the box would be in.  I had camera in hand as I often do when I am doing drivebys and within a few minutes, I was approached by a lady who was cleaning the restrooms who asked me if I was there to see their new enclosure in the back of the building.  I told her no and headed in the opposite direction, casually taking pictures of the red berries which were in full bloom on the trees.  A few minutes later, she came back and asked me for my card.  My card???  As it turned out, the woman didn't believe me when I told her that I wasn't there about their new enclosure so she went to her boss who told her I needed to give them a card before I could do my inspection.  Needless to say, I left without my box.

My next box failure came on the 14 mile long Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.  First of all, I should say that I am deathly scared of large expanses of water which makes me very, very nervous on bridges because I always imagine them breaking and my falling into that large expanse of water.  Fourteen miles of solid bridge gave me the heebie jeebies just thinking about it.  But it was the shortest way to get to Virginia Beach and I really wanted the box so I took the bridge.  Well, there was no box.  There was lots and lots of water to see and I did manage to get a few postcards and a patch in the gift shop but box number two was a failure.

 As I reached the northern end of Virginia Beach I stopped at First Landing State Park to search for several boxes there.  My first thought as I entered the trail was that I had made a really, really wrong turn and I had ended up in Florida.  These cypress swamps look just like the area along the St. Johns River near our home in Florida.  While I like the wild look of these swampy areas, I associate them with SNAKES!  I did manage to find two boxes in this park and didn't find about four of them. 

 My nest stop was my hotel which didn't really live up to its ad but was more than sufficient for what I needed so I got myself settled in and headed up the boardwalk for my next box at the Coast Guard station. 

 

Guess what!  It was missing!  Again, I managed to get a few postcards and a patch so the visit wasn't for nothing.

 Early the next morning, just at daybreak, I headed for a box at the Convention Center.  I figured that the earlier I got for a driveby at a busy place like this, the better it would be.  But I was WRONG!  I quickly located the spot that the box was hidden and watched in dismay as the parking lot across the street began to fill with what looked to be homeless people.  They congregated for a while and then received instructions from the person in charge on what parts of the area they needed to start picking up trash.  I just wasn't going to win this day either.  I was able to park my car in front of the box and retrieve it without suspicion but I couldn't pull the same trick to return it so for the first time in my boxing life, I took a box with me and returned it at the end of the day.  Yeah!  I had a found box!

 This is a picture that still makes me a bit agitated as I wonder what happens here in Pennsylvania to make our gas prices forty cents a gallon higher.  I did enjoy this price while I was in Virginia.

 One of the neatest things about being outside so much this week was the sound of the Navy jets flying overhead.  My guess is that the residents are not so thrilled with the sound which is almost non stop at some times of the day but I loved it.  The sounds did stop for a few hours on this day as President Obama made a visit to the Virginia Beach amphitheater.  Since I saw no other planes either, they may have closed the airspace during the President's visit.

 In the background of this picture is the Virginia Beach amphitheater a few hours after the President's visit and an area where I did have success finding a box.  I was amazed that the city did so well with this visit.  I passed this area a couple of times before and during the visit and traffic flowed very smoothly.  I saw police on every corner but everything just seemed so calm and well organized that I was very impressed.

 Next came my only really bad experience of the week.  There are several boxes in Redwing Park,  all of them on different trails in different areas of the park.  I didn't find the first two that I searched for but third time was the charm with a Baqash box.  Then I was off to a different trail.  I pulled into the parking area and there was only one other car there with a man sitting in it.  Now, I did have a gun with me and I know how to use it but I don't really like carrying it with me because it is heavy and I have never felt really threatened before.  I left it in my car this time but think I should have taken it with me.  As I went after a box (which I didn't find) and had just given up, I turned around to find the man behind me.  He said "I never knew there were trails back here" which I thought was rather strange since he was parked at a trail head.  I nervously excused myself and headed back to my car as quickly as I could.  I then went to another section of the park and walked the trail looking for a couple of boxes and on my way back to the card, I saw this beautiful flower in the middle of the trail.  Now, I was the only one in these woods which were not really dense and I could see through them to the parking lot most of the way and this flower was NOT in the trail on my way into the box and it is autumn here and everything is getting brown and there were no nearby trees with any flowers on so where this one came from, I have no idea but it did spook me enough to send me back to my hotel to clean up and spend the rest of the day walking the boardwalk.