Found: One Missing Dwarf Planet and One with Five Moons

Ralph Spoilsport has planted a very enticing stamp series along a very longgggggggggggg stretch of the Lebanon Valley Rail Trail.  While I know that I can walk the nine miles to collect the stamps, I also know that walking that long on a rail trail can become a bit monotonous so I decided to do these boxes in sections and I was lucky enough to enlist my friend, Idlemoon, to accompany me for a couple of planets. 

 

We met early in the morning at the Root Beer barrel.  I know that you can get root beer there but I am not sure why it is placed in the parking lot for the trail nor does it say when it is open.  We knew that it wouldn't be open with our early start so we took advantage to snap some pictures of it.

 We started our walk and passed some pretty berries and a funny dedication sign on a bench.

 

We walked and we walked and we walked and we walked and finally found the dwarf planet.  And then we walked and we walked and we walked and we walked and saw where we thought Pluto was planted but it was behind about twenty feet of thick summer growth.  So we circled around to it through a less dense section of foliage and Idlemoon looked and looked and looked and didn't find the box.  We were very upset because we had walked over three miles to get to this point and knew that we would probably not want to make that walk again when the summer growth died back.  Idlemoon was saying to me "if I had placed this box here, I would have put it right here"  and as she moved the debris over the area that she WOULD have put it, the box fell out from underneath that area.  Yay, Idlemoon!!!

 Since the 13 mile marker is close to the end point of this series, we decided to try to convince everyone that we had actually walked the full 9 miles of the series.  But sadly, we didn't really do that.

 Although we had walked three miles to get to this point, we looked a little too fresh to have walked the whole length. 

 

As we trudged the three miles back to our starting point, we debated continuing south to find the next box but with the heat and humidity setting in, we decided to wait for another day for those.  You know what would have tasted really good when we reached our cars?  A nice cold root beer but the barrel was still buttoned up tight as could be.

Collecting Numbers

I had a three day weekend....well, almost everyone had a three day weekend since the 4th of July was on a Friday this year...and I wanted to do something besides hang around the house.  I keep packets of  boxing day trips ready to grab and run if the urge strikes me and this time I grabbed the packet that had me heading west.  I had just solved a mystery clue (yes, I do sometimes succeed at doing that) and I wanted to test my theory so my first stop of the day was in York County where I found that my solution had been correct.  As I emerged from the woods that morning, this lovely site was in front of me.  The haziness that comes from the humidity of summer had lifted and the lake looked lovely.

 I moved up the road a bit on my way to Gettysburg when I passed through New Oxford.  This is a town that has special meaning to me because my family is from a little town on New Oxford's outskirts called Irishtown.  I had spent a tremendous amount of time in the New Oxford area when I was growing up as we visited grandparents and aunts and cousins.  This box has been in place for quite a while but my route to and from Gettysburg these days takes me down the turnpike and south on 81 so New Oxford was totally out of the way.  But this was the day to capture this box with the very amusing clues.  It was in a really great hiding spot for such a public area and I am really happy to have accomplished this goal also.

 

 I headed for the Gettysburg Battlefield and began to collect the boxes that I had not yet found on previous trips there.  A walk near the Visitor's Center proved even more rewarding as I noticed many blue dragonflies hovering around.  I found the boxes at the Center very easily and when I logged the finds, I was really amused at the comments by others who had found them, claiming that the clues were not accurate.  You would think that experienced letterboxers would remember that there is a difference between steps and paces and not complain when they confuse the words.

 After accomplishing a major, major coup (at least in my book) by finding a box in a Civil War store in Gettysburg, something that I had tried twice before, I moved on to the cemetery.  I still can't believe that in all of my visits to Gettysburg, I have never been to the site of the Gettysburg Address before.  I also can't believe that the town of Gettysburg was almost deserted on this patriotic holiday weekend.  It certainly was to my benefit that it was not crowded but I was surprised nonetheless.

 

I was also amused at the number of people who walked into the cemetery and viewed this monument to Abraham Lincoln and then stood and looked downhill at these white tombstones behind the monument and then left.  I don't think they realized that these tombs were more modern burial sites, VietNam era and more recent.  The actual plots for those who died during the Civil War were scattered further along the cemetery.  But the tourists were probably happy that they could say they were at the cemetery.

 

 When I finished at Gettysburg, I headed down the road a bit more and stopped in to see the Appalachian Trail Museum.  I had read in our local paper a few months ago that this had opened and when a fellow letterboxer mentioned finding an unlisted letterbox stamp in the museum a week earlier, it was enough momentum to get me there.  It was an interesting and small museum and I was not only able to add a stamp to my collection but also a patch for my patch collection. 

 Somewhere along the way this day, I was also able to take this picture of one of the few remaining blooming rhododendrons.  I ended the day with twelve new boxes, several hundred miles listening to my audio book, 7 miles of walking and the joy of finally finding the Postage Paid letterbox, successfully solving a Red Cruzsader mystery box, visiting a new local location at the Gettysburg National Cemetery and seeing a whole lot of Adams County.

Rainbow!

 I started out early with high expectations for a busy letterboxing day.  The sun was out, it was on the cooler side for a June morning and I coasted through the country roads looking forward to the day ahead. It was the first day of summer so sunrise was the earliest it would be all year.   The roads were empty as I traveled them about 5:15 AM and when I saw this rainbow ahead of me, I thought I was imagining it.  So I pulled to the side of the road and watched it emerge, not sure why it WAS emerging because as I have already mentioned, the sun was already out for the day and I had seen no sign of rain. 

I was even able to see the other end of the rainbow.  When I captioned my Facebook picture of this end, I called it "the other end of the rainbow" and my cousin suggested that would be a good name for a book.  I have to agree and may have to think about that as an idea for when I retire in a couple of years.

Well, no matter why a rainbow had appeared, the view was stupendous, much better than my boxing day turned out to be, but what a way to start any day.   And when the second rainbow tried to make its appearance, I felt truly blessed.