Our boxing buddies, Blue Delft and Idlemoon had planted a plethora of boxes for Dutch Country PAL 2014 day and I was really eager to go find them. I enlisted Red Cruzsader and Dogs with Wings to spend the day with me and we started at our search by climbing to the top of the Highpoint Scenic Vista so that we could watch the sunrise over the Susquehanna River. 
We could look across the river to the windmills that were circling lazily high about the river. Before the day was over, we would be at the base of those windmills but for now, we were enjoying Highpoint, a park that none of us had ever visited before.
This park was a bit different from most parks in our area. It was mostly fields with trails mowed through them and I followed at a respectful district so that I could take my normal from the rear pictures.
From Highpoint, we moved on to Sam S. Lewis State Park. I grew up picnicing at this park with my sisters and brother. It is a small park but it is best known for its piles of large boulders that generations of kids have climbed on. It is high on a hill top and when we pulled into the parking lot, this hot air balloon was coasting slowly in front of us.
I learned something new during our visit here, I never knew that there were real trails in this park. All we were ever interested in were the rocks! But we went in search of the GRANDEST, LARGEST tree in the woods and were rewarded with a great tree which made Red and me look small.....oh, and a couple of totally neat boxes.
Red stamps in to one of those boxes
From Sam Lewis we headed across the river to climb to the windmills we had seen earlier. I didn't take many pictures on the walk up because the walk was a tough one. Idlemoon had previously joked that it was about a four mile round trip walk - three miles up and one mile back. The ladies had made the trip more bearable though by hiding several boxes to be found on the way up. It broke up the walk and made it a little less tiring. The details that went into all of the boxes that we found this day was wonderful A lot of care and thought were put into the logbooks which matched the stamps and the finders' prize for one of the boxes we found is one of my favorites ever. Below, Dogs with Wings and Red stamp into one of these wonderful boxes.
At one spot, I was able to catch a picture of the river through the trees.
Eventually, we reached the top and I was enthralled with the sight of the windmills close up. I have been in awe of these structures ever since I saw them for the first time many years ago on our visit to the Flight 93 crash site. Now we were so close to them. They are massive!!
The view from the top of this climb was worth every painful step that it took to get up here. Absolutely gorgeous!
This was about as close as I would get to the edge of the hill though. My fear of heights was kicking in and when Dogs with Wings offered to take a picture of me, I was VERY nervous standing here even though I was sure that it was very safe and secure.
Our trip back down the mountain allowed us to pay a little more attention to our surroundings since we had captured all fo the boxes along the way and didn't have to focus on clues and we soon saw some of the wildlife in the area. This little toad was right on the trail and in danger of being trampled until Dogs with Wings moved him safely into the woods. No one was too worried about this little snake though as he wriggled onto the trail and then quickly slithered back into the woods.
When we got to the bottom again, we took a little detour along the rail trail that runs around the base of the mountain and checked out this red caboose.
Ground level view of the Susquehanna River. It looked a lot more beautiful from high above on both the east and west sides of the river.
Since we finished the Blue Delft and Idlemoon boxes a lot quicker than we thought we would, Red Cruzsader suggested a stop a bit further north to be first finders in a series of Ralph Spoilsport boxes.
Red had solved the location for the boxes and led the way through the park where we found four out of five of them. It is unbelievable how quickly the warm weather caused the grasses and brush to fill in any open space previously exposed.
We took in the view of this lovely pond and soon Red was exploring the dam end of it looking for a box.
As we finished up our day, Dogs with Wings and Red Cruzsader exchanged personal stamps and some travelers. They had not previously met but it turned out to be a very good letterboxing ensemble.
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