This is Why I Letterbox - Hay Creek Boxing

 

After two years of trying to wheedle someone to go with me to the Birdsboro area to letterbox, an area that is less than four miles from my home, today was finally the day.  Dogs with Wings and I set out on our adventure on a cloudy morning.  Our first endeavor was to cross two sets of wires, the second set is pictured above, to cross the Hay Creek.  We could have entered the park from the south end without crossing wires, but doing the cable bridges was absolutely part of the planned adventure.   My grandson, African Wild, and I had tried this last autumn and we had made it across the first bridge but he was just too short for the second one and we had to give up that day.

 

 The "park" here evolved after a bridge on route 82 had been washed out by torrential rains in 1987.  It was decided not to rebuild the bridge and eventually, the citizens began walking the woods here, trails developed, rock climbing walls were discovered and the place became a park simply by being utilized by the locals.  I have lived about four miles from it since the year 2001 and except for African Wild's and my one attempt, I had never walked the trails.  But now, thanks to River Sol's placement of  The Fairy Tale letterbox, Dogs with Wings and I went exploring in what is now called Berks County Park.

 There is just enough autumn color left to make everything still appear lovely.  The winter blahs have not yet made an appearance in the woods.

 We backdoored our way into Deutsche Märchen as we walked up this little hill.  I have seen pictures of the reservoir at the top of the hill but still wasn't prepared for the beauty that we saw when we reached the top.

 

Beautiful is just not a strong enough word to describe the reservoir which was perfectly still.  By now the sun had made its appearance and the reservoir acted like a mirror, reflecting the tall pine trees which rimmed the trail around the lake.

 

 

 There were about a million dog walkers out today.  Apparently, this is a favorite spot for the Birdsboroians to take their dogs for some exercise.  My hiking partner, Dogs with Wings, is a real dog lover and we had to stop and greet each and every dog that we passed.

We had a lot of difficulty finding one of the boxes in this area but because the area was so pretty, it really didn't matter to us that we had to spend more time here than we had originally expected.

 When we came back down the hill to the creek and started walking to find the last of the boxes on our itinerary, we discovered that we had taken a wrong turn and since we had already put in eight miles due to some exploring and some back tracking, we decided to call it a day.  Although there is one more box to find and it gives me a valid reason to return to this park, I don't think any reason will be necessary from now on,  It is a beautiful place to wander around and I will return with or without a box for a reason.