2014 Stats

Everything that we do at my job ends up being a stat of some sort and even though I really don't like the idea that my work with my customers can be "statisized" (I know that isn't a word!), I decided to play with my letterboxing stats as this year comes to a close.

Stats for 2014
Boxes found - 927
Events attended - 10
States in which I found boxes - 8
State in which I found the most boxes - West Virginia.  I had to check on this one to verify it but thanks to two very prolific events, WV beat out my homestate of PA by 30 boxes.
Boxes planted - 12

Goals for 2015:
Spend more time boxing with friends.  I am hoping that Crayola Posse, Idlemoon, Blue Delft, Red Cruzsader, Dogs with Wings are reading this!
Find a box in SC so I can fill that state in on my profile page map.
Visit New England to box (and also to fill in a few map states).
Plant more in PA. After all, I have 15 new sheets of SLQ to use up.
Plant in Volusia County, FL.  SLQ would probably work well in Florida also.
Keep up with my blogs.

And this concludes letterboxing for the year 2014.  Hello and welcome to 2015!

Boxing Day Boxing

We have been having some unseasonably warm weather this past week and I had scheduled my last vacation days for 2014 for the weekend after Christmas.  It is the first time I have ever been off work on Boxing Day unless it was on a weekend so I was determined to take advantage of it.  After all, there could be no excuse not to with the agreeable weather.  I decided to head to a park where the first boxes of a new letterboxer had come highly recommended.  Besides the two new boxes, there were a couple of others that I hadn't searched for yet so away I went to the Newlin Grist Mill.  I didn't expect to find anything in this colorless season that would tempt me to take pictures but I was wrong.  I could see this pretty little waterfall as I exited my car and was feeling good about my hunt.

 The mill was built in 1704 and pretty little buildings were scattered along the paths that I took.

 The best surprise for me was when I arrived at the location of the first box by Barebate and saw a slightly larger and very pretty waterfall there.  I can't believe that I didn't take a picture of the stepping stones that one has to cross to get to this view but perhaps I was so focused on not hitting a patch of ice on the rocks and falling in that I subconsciously ignored them when I was taking pictures.   Making my little rock walking trip worthwhile was the fact that I did find the new box and it was very nicely done but an older one that was in the same area seems to be missing.  The waterfalls were very pretty and worth every hop on the rocks.

 As I approached a landmark for the second of Barebate's boxes, I found some intruders were already there and I really had to employ the stealth technique so that they wouldn't see me and know what I was doing.  I must have not been as stealthy as I had hoped because we entered into a very long staredown before they decided to turn over the area to me.

We see a lot of different wildlife boxes for owls and bats and birds and butterflies in our boxing travels  but I have never seen one with this shape opening before.  At first I thought it might be an owl box but nothing in this shape shows up in my internet searches.  Any ideas?

There were splashes of color throughout the park from these very seasonal holly trees.

 After I completed a fairly disappointing day of boxing, three finds and two missing boxes and two more that I didn't even attempt because others had already reported them missing, I decided to poke around the area a little.  There was a little, and I do mean little, gift shop in the visitor center and I had hoped to purchase a patch to add to my patch collection but they had none although I was told that they were thinking about adding some in the future.   I still am not sure how that would help me but I kept my thoughts to myself.   I contented myself with walking the grounds and taking more pictures.

 

 

 As I was driving home, I realized that I would be passing a park very close to our house that I had wanted to visit ever since Ryan made some sort of update recently on AQ.  A box that I had never seen before had popped up and to this day, I can't figure out why I had missed it in the year since it has been listed.   I was rather suspicious of this box because something didn't seem quite right with it and the fact that the owner was now listed as "system" made me curious.  So I decided to take a little walk - it was listed as a 1 mile stroll - to see if I could find it.  Two and a half miles later and with the main clue never becoming apparent and missing a run in with some hunters (who knew people hunted in December in a public park?) I decided that there really was something hokey about the box listing but was still happy to have taken a walk in a very pretty park.

 

 

Final tally - four found boxes, three attempts, about five miles walked on a very beautiful winter day, all added up to a terrific way to spend Boxing Day 2014.  Even better for me was the realization that this would be the last Boxing Day that I would ever have to take a vacation day for.  The next two will be on weekend days and after that I will be retired and free EVERY Boxing Day!

Edited to add these two pictures that Idlemoon provided.  These are the stepping stones that had to be crossed to reach one of the boxes.  The water was a little higher thanks to some rain that we had been enjoying and the temps were around freezing point so it was an interesting little endeavor for me to cross them.  Thanks, Idlemoon, for the pictures!

Avoiding Gators

I am afraid of alligators.  There, I said it.  Alligators fascinate me but I am afraid of running into one of them when I letterbox in Florida.   The first time I ever walked in a tropical park while trying to find a good spot to place a letterbox, I was sure that every rustle of palm leaves that I heard was an alligator coming for me.  Palm leaves are very stiff and make lots of noise if there is a breeze so I was hearing lots of imaginary alligators.  Not to mention the squirrels.  Did you know that squirrels also sound exactly like alligators?  I do have to mention that I have never seen an alligator while boxing in Florida but perhaps that is because I am very careful about where I go searching.  So I had planned my day alone very carefully, sticking to more urban type parks where I imagined there would be no alligators.

My first stop was in a very pretty little river side park in Cape Canaveral called Manatee Sanctuary.  There I found two boxes, both very nice boxes, but my main reason for celebrating was that one of them was by Turkey Feathers.  Now, Turkey Feathers lives in my neck of the woods, kinda sorta.  OK, he lives hundreds of miles from me but much closer than his vacation spot in Florida which is probably about 1200 miles from his home and 1000 miles from mine.  But I scored a Turkey Feathers box.   Hurrah!  And there were no alligators in either park.

While I was in this area, I noticed that I was meandering around I Dream of Jeannie land.  I also found a second Turkey Feathers box in honor of the tv series that we enjoyed so long ago.

Another really exciting thing that happened on my days of avoiding alligators, was that I found a total of 22 boxes by 3 Flamigos.  Even more exciting was that I actually met Mae, the driving force behind this family of boxers, at the Rotary Park Nature Center.  She is so warm and friendly that it only took a few minutes to feel as though I had known her forever.  The really unusual thing for me is that I didn't take any pictures of us together.  Oh, well, I will have to correct that mistake when we meet again during a February Florida event that we will both be attending.

I am a reader of the message boards on Atlas Quest and one thing that I have heard mentioned again and again and again by Kirbert, a Florida resident, is that he plants boxes in cashew jars.  All of this time, I envisioned the cashew containers that we have here in Pennsylvania and it didn't make a lot of sense to me but several of the 3 Flamigos boxes that I found were in large plastic jars like the one in the picture.  I checked inside of them and as best as I could tell, this was a cashew jar, not at all what I was expecting. But I liked them, they were big enough to comfortably hold a logbook and stamp as well as a hitchhiker and they all seemed nice and dry when I found them.  I wonder if I can convince Bill to buy cashews when he goes back down after Christmas.

 

As I have mentioned before, I love finding boxes along the water fronts and when one is in this part of the country, another reward is the sight of the NASA building.   I had a similar view from so many of the parks that I visited that Bill and I checked several of them out before we chose the final park where we watched the rocket Orion take off on December 5. 

 

Another thing that I love in this type of parks is the large amount of boardwalks that wander through them, often showcasing particular trees or geological views that are so fascinating to me as I get to know this area that we spend so much time in anymore.

   

There happened to be a few areas that I visited that were not of the well maintained boardwalk type.  They were more wild looking and definitely looked as though alligators would be happy to visit them.  Ulumay was one of those spots.  I drove down a dirt road into what looked like a very small peninsula shaped area jutting out into the river.  It was covered with palm trees and other jungle type growth so I couldn't see the water from the road I was on.  I tentatively got out of the car and walked past a gate to search for the box, all the time sure that I was going to have my alligator experience here when, magically, there was a trail and there were lots of people on it.  Here, in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, was an access point to a four mile trail.  Considering that I thought I was on a peninsula, I am not sure where it led and I didn't have time to explore that day but it was just another one of the many surprises that I get when I search for my boxes. The picture below is of my view as I stamped into the box.

 One of my favorite boxes this trip was found at a little Veterans' Museum on Merritt Island.  Since Bill is a Vietnam veteran, I always look for spots like this to take him to visit later.  We didn't have the opportunity this trip but since we go to Merritt Island often, I am sure we will make a stop there at some point.  The box was great and filled with stamps related to the military and the volunteers working in the museum were thrilled when I found the box.

 

After leaving the museum, I headed for another box that I really wanted to get but was a little nervous about going after.  It didn't involve alligators at all but it did involve walking through a private airport. It was a box by Kirbert and placed by 3 Flamigos so I knew that it had to be ok to go for it but I was nervous nonetheless. 

So I bravely walked by all of the airplanes as though I had every right to be there and entered the office to look for the box.  The room was full of pilots for these private planes and I almost felt as though I were in the United Nations as I listened to many of them on their phones speaking in foreign languages or with strong accents.  Once again, the ladies who were working at the desk were delighted that someone came to find the box and I was more than happy that I  made the effort in spite of being nervous about it.

 

 Since I live most of the time in Pennsylvania, a state that played a large role in the Civil War, I rarely think of Florida as a state with the same type of history.  But DC Stones had discovered a secret about this area and its involvement with the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and had placed a box in its memory.  DC Stones is another boxer who lives much closer to Pennsylvania than to Florida so it was a pleasure that I was able to find a box by another good letterboxer, even if it took me 1000 miles to find it.  Once again, I ran into a group of the lovely live oak trees, whose spreading branches were probably 20 to 25 feet away from the main trunk of the tree.

 While searching for the box, I ran across this pathetic little grave.  It made me sad to think that no one had the opportunity to provide a more permanent memorial to this person.  Someone obviously cared because there were flowers there but perhaps the funds to add a tombstone were just not available.

 This was the tombstone in whose memory the box was placed.  As I was typing this, I had to twice correct myself when I instinctively typed "in whose honor" instead of  "in whose memory" because I certainly don't think that the memory of the plot to assassinate people is something to be honored.

 And thus ended my letterboxing experiences for this trip.  I didn't see any alligators but I did find lots of boxes and made a new letterboxing friend.  I also came back to Pennsylvania with lots of ideas about where to place boxes of my own and what type of boxes to construct that would withstand the Floridian climate. 

Sneak Boxing

 Most people know that we have a home in Volusia County in Florida.  There are not very many letterboxes in the area and when I am down there I don't have my own car to just take off and box in another area.  When I do that, the Immobile One is stuck at home until I return.  So I usually arrange with him to have the car at least one day each week so that I can spend the entire day boxing but the rest of the time, if I want to get a box, I have to be a little sneaky about it.  To say he is not into boxing at all is an understatement.  So, I plan and I plot areas that may have a box or two that I can grab while we are enjoying the area that it is in.  Last month I was in Florida for two weeks and I managed a few single boxes, the first one was at the Canaveral National Seashore.  We arrived there on a blustery, cloudy day.  I love this seashore area and since I was able to purchase my own Senior Pass the last time I was in Florida, I wanted to be able to use it.  The national parks in Pennsylvania are free so the pass doesn't benefit me at all.  I was happy when we stopped at the ranger station to see that my pass worked just fine and we drove down the road, making a stop at the visitor center to book a water tour a couple of days later.  As we were heading into the area where the box was located, we were stunned to see a large black cat crossing the road in front of us and even more stunned when we realized that what we were seeing was a black panther.  I grabbed for my camera but he was gone.  So Bill parked the car and put his seat back ready to take a nap while I went for the first box in Mosquito Lagoon.  There is just something special about looking for a box along the water.  I never tire of looking at it although I have no desire to be IN it and little desire to be ON it.  But this day, even the cloudy skies didn't make the waves any less pretty.

 

The house below is the Mounton-Wells house which sits right next to the water and was part of the clues for the box that I was searching.

  

 I found my box, made it back to the car and woke Bill up and we continued our drive through the park, stopping at Beach #5 aka the Nude Beach.  We have viewed the nude beach in the southern part of the park several times and when we were joking with the ranger about the northern part of the park not having anything like it, he informed us that we were wrong, there was also one at that end.  So we parked there and walked out to the beach, not surprisingly, it was empty.  This would definitely not have been a good day to be laying on a beach with no clothes on.

 The sky and the ocean made a really pretty scene.

 The next day arrived with brilliant sunshine so we made our way a little north to Bulow Creek State Park to look for the Fairchild Oak.  At least that was my ruse to get Bill to go with me to the park.  The trails are so beautiful here, so green and exotic looking.

 It didn't take me long to find this box which needs some TLC and to return to look at this massive live oak tree.  I have to admit that when I saw the name live oak, I thought it simply meant that the oak tree was alive but I later found that it is actually a type of tree called a live oak.  It gets its name from the fact that it retains its leaves all year long and always looks alive.  These trees have such beautiful spreading and curving branches.  The Fairchild Oak was absolutely massive, look how small I look next to is.

 This monument was another point of interest in a park a little down the road from Bulow Creek.  This memorial to Chief Tomokie is in Tomoka State park and I just may have to figure out a way to place a box in tribute to this imaginary Indian chief on a later visit.

 Sneaky letterboxing on day #3 took us to Weeki Wachee Springs to see the famous mermaids.  This park used to be privately owned but has recently become a state park.  It was unlike any state park I have ever been in before.

 The theme throughout the park was definitely mermaids and we attended both of the two different mermaid shows.  It was entirely beyond my understanding how these ladies could dance and maneuver underwater in such graceful movements.  The secret to their remaining underwater, which is really no secret at all because you can see them, are the breathing tubes that they carry with them, taking a breath whenever necessary.  So in addition to dancing underwater which would be difficult enough, they have to avoid getting tangled in the long hoselike tubes.

 

 

 I figured that the way to soften Bill up for the upcoming search for the letterbox was to have him pose with this pretty mermaid with the gorgeous smile.

 

All of my sneaky ploys worked, I was able to grab some fairly quick letterboxes in each spot without antagonizing my companion.

And This is How It Began - October 11, 2003

Every year I have a winter project and this year's project is to organize all of my digital photos.  I am an avid picture taker, I don't go anywhere without my little point and shoot cameras, and although I am pretty good about backing all of my photos up, I am not good at remembering what I have already backed up.  So many of my photos are backed up numerous times - not a bad thing, I know, but a little daunting when I am looking for an old photo.  So my new computer with lots of space now contains every digital photo that I can find and I am having a great time reminiscing as I go through them all.  Sometimes I laugh at what I find and sometimes I cry.  One group of pictures that made me do both was this set that I found of my very first letterbox find on October 12, 2003.  I can laugh because it was funny to realize that I had walked this trail so many times and never knew it's secrets and I cry because I did it with my precious little sidekick, Barney.  Barney and I quickly became a letterboxing duo using the trail name of Team Little Dog.  His little legs ended up walking so many trails with me and I was so sad when he got too old to do this easily any more.  His spirit was always willing but his body was slowing down.  Two years ago, on December 29, we were forced to let my little partner go to the Rainbow Bridge and I rarely plan a letterboxing hunt without considering if my Barney could do it or not. But this box, Barney was with me as I discovered this new part of my life that remains a strong part of it 11 years later.

It all began on the Exeter Scenic River Trail, a trail about a mile from my house, with the box appropriately called the Exeter Scenic Trail Rocks.  The box was placed by DiverDM, someone who must have come and gone in the hobby pretty quickly, but it was maintained by Silent Doug.  I was so impressed when a few months later I met Silent Doug at my first gathering in Palmyra NJ.  But....back to my memories of box number 1.  Barney was very familiar with this trail and he would walk it confidently with me trailing behind.

 We followed the clues down the trail to the overpass bridge, not sure what we were going to find when we got there.

 The scenery was pretty as the fall colors reflected on the Schuylkil River.

 

 

 Shortly after this overpass is a rock grouping, high on the hill.  I am not sure how I coaxed Barney to climb the hill with me but he did it and this was our reward - my very first letterbox and the beginning of many years of memories and good friends.

 These last two pictures are from our walk the week before my discovery but they are of two of my great loves of 2003 - my pre grandkids days.  Barney, my sweet little boy, and my Rav4.  Yes, I know it is strange to love a car, but I did love that car.  It was with me through as many experiences as Barney was and I cried when I traded it in on a new Rav4.  I like my current Rav4 but I loved my Little Toy and it served me well.  Barney - well he just gave me a lot of pleasure and I miss him every day.