There is More to Letterboxing than Stamps!

 I was back in Florida and this time, in order to box as much as I wanted, I decided to rent a car.   Bill says he doesn't mind when I use his car but it always makes me feel guilty that he is stuck at home when I am out having fun.  And this visit, I planned my fun without having him along and trying to trick him into letting me find boxes.  So, I took a picture of my chariot for the week and just want to say that I will never desire buying a Toyota Yaris.  Enough said.

 I headed first for Buck Lake to find a mystery box that had eluded me last time I tried to find it.  There are so many little places like this to hide boxes in and previously, I had always been kind of afraid to wander around them alone because of my fear of alligators and snakes.  But with experience comes more confidence with walking through these conservation areas.  I have to admit that my confidence took a little hit when I saw this poster below.  I am  used to being wary of ticks and mosquitoes and I am a little nervous about running into the wild hogs which are common in Florida but I never knew there was a disease that came with the hogs.

 Fortunately, I found my box with ease this time and headed over to another area which had presented a problem during my last visit.  I was on Merritt Island to do a seven box series in November.  I found the first box but the clues said to cross a boardwalk and I couldn't see a boardwalk.  It had rained heavily the week before and the area was flooded.  This time the boardwalk was very evident and I was happy to proceed across it.

 

I guess most people would think this is gross but I was intrigued by this pile of scat which was on the boardwalk.  I could tell by looking at it that the depositor was a fruit and seed eater by the pretty colored seeds popping through.  I ended up buying a scat identifier at a local park and think that this belongs to nothing more exotic than a raccoon.  But it looked pretty and sparkly with the sun shining on it.

I soon came across another interesting site.  The stamps in the boxes were all wrapped in long strips of cotton fabric and had been placed almost a year earlier.  Right in the middle of the path between two of the boxes, was a small piece of the fabric, looking like it was brand new.  How and why it got there is a mystery. 

 When I had crossed the boardwalk a little earlier, a man who was coming in the opposite direction had warned me that there was a family of wild pigs on the trail ahead.  He assured me that they were too small to  hurt me and that I should just make a lot of noise and they would run.  I never did run into the pigs but I did see signs of their rooting for bugs in these upturned piles of debris.

 I had finished my planned boxes for this day and was heading for home when I saw these huge kites flying over the treeline ahead of me.  I could tell they were near the bridge over the Indian River and I was excited to see them closer.  As I approached, I realized that they were not kites at all but that they were attached to people!  Kitesurfers!  I quickly pulled into a little park which was really only a strip of beach and got out to watch the beauty and grace of these kites.  I had just lived another one of those "if it hadn't been for letterboxing" moments and was thrilled with the experience.

 

 

  A windsurfer worked his way along the shoreline.

 As I turned to get back into my car, the ever familiar site of the NASA building popped up right behind me.

I still don't know which pleased me the most this day, finding the mystery box second time around, completing the series which had eluded me a few months earlier or seeing the beauty on the water.  All I do know is that when Bill asked me how my day had been and I was explaining all three scenarios to him, only another letterboxer could have understood my happiness.