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!