The Carnival of the Lost Souls

For many reasons, I haven't been to a letterboxing gathering for several years but when one was posted that looked as though it would be as much fun for my grandson, African Wild, as it would be for me, I began working on my daughter, Outofsight, to allow me to take him along with me.  A family camping trip had been planned for the same weekend so my daughter was hesitant to have him with me instead of with them but when he expressed an interest in attending the second grade "dance" being held at his school on Friday night, I was granted weekend custody.  Ironically, about half way through the day on Saturday, I got a phone call from Outofsight telling me that they were heading for home because they had been placed in the same camploop as the permanent campers and because it was the last weekend of the season for this campground, all of the long term people were busy winterizing their RVs and no Halloween activities were planned for the children in the campground.

The gathering, The Carnival of the Lost Souls, was hosted by Ralph Spoilsport who was resplendent in his tuxedo and I was in awe of the multitude of seasonal appropriate stamps that he had carved for the event.  Ralph is an excellent carver and I have always been thrilled to find his normal planted boxes so all of these new stamps were such a delight.  Here he poses with Undead Hunter Fred who doesn't look at ALL the way I expected him to look.  I was also very happy to meet him after finding many of his boxes and also enjoying his carving skills.

 

African Wild had almost squealed in delight when we pulled into the parking lot of the Mount Laurel Community Park and we saw the playground within a few yards of the main event area.  He managed to stay with me in the pavilion for about four stamps before the call of the merry go round pulled him away from me for most of the remainder of the day.

 

African Wild did manage to come into the pavilion with his new friend, Idlesun in the white hat, to watch and listen in fascination to his first heavy metal band, Terror Inc.

 Lots of stamping into event boxes and personal travelers as well as personal signature stamps.  Here in the green, Anne of Green Gables, in the blue is Blue Delft, and with the cat whiskers is SuzyQLou.

 The Booshmen, father and son, and more excellent carvers, hard at work on the plethora of stamps.

 Long time letterboxing friend, Leafcutter, and our new letterboxing acquaintence, Night0wl, exchange stamps.

It was so nice to be reunited with other long time friends, on the left, Wednesday Bowler and Celtic Cat with a very delightful new friend, Treasurehonas.  With her back to the camera is Lotus.

Another new letterboxing acquaintance, standing in the center of the picture, is SWGS.

 Two more long time friends, Pink Panther and Geckospot working on the event stamp.

 African Wild and Idlesun made a return visit to listen to the band.

 

 

 The boys then joined the rest of the kids on the most popular spot of the day.

 The hazy moon was high in the sky just as Ralph announced that the night boxing was ready and we were all treated to nine more Ralph stamps.

 Till we had reached box number nine, African Wild was almost asleep on his feet.  We were hardly in the car for five minutes before he was out cold and even after I had completely emptied out the car which contained everything but the kitchen sink, he was still asleep.  I finally had to wake him to get him into his bed where he collapsed on the bottom bunk instead of climbing to his normal bed on the top.  I knew that the day was a success for him when I overheard him chattering nonstop to his parents all of the good things that he had enjoyed.  I already knew that it was a good day for me also for so many reasons but most of all because Ralph created a day that made my grandson happy.