recent letterboxing adventures

We recently planted (and replanted) a few new boxes in the Waco area. New ones include the "A is for Arboretum" series and "The Snake We Never Saw" (and of which Gryzzled Gryphon is deathly afraid!) :-) We've got a few more that will be going online shortly.


We just returned from a trip to Santa Fe, in which we got to visit with our good friends and letterboxers Astro D and Lionsmane. Unfortunately great hiking opportunities and many boxes out in the national forests were unavailable (NF closures due to the fires and fire danger), but we did manage to hunt down a few urban boxes (when we weren't busy at the many wonderful eateries!)

On our way to and from Santa Fe, we picked up a few boxes in what could be called the Way-Out-in-the-Middle-of-Nowhere Letterbox Tour.  :-)  We founad BootsTex's "The Sherriff Wore Petticoats" (very interesting story, btw!), the brand new and first box by CresoteRain:  "Spade Ranch South Camp"  which required nerves of steel (or at least not being afraid of critters!), "C.W. Post", and "Circle Tour 2009-Panhandle, TX." On our speedy trip back, we visited BT's "The Swinging Bridge" (which wins the award for coolest location AND the most-way-out-in-the-sticks LB!  Sadly, we were unable to find this box, but as BT said (and he's right), it's worth the trip to see this historical bridge even without a box. We also picked up Joe's Boot Shop LB (and while it's urban, Clovis NM counts as way out in the middle of nowhere!) We also visited Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, NM- a fascinating little swimming hole in which the water really is blue (and 60 degrees year round), going 80 feet into the earth. It seems odd that there could be any scuba diving in new mexico, but you can do it here!

In Santa Fe, we started and ended our time with some great LB series by artTrekker. we were excited to find two more of the 3 part series "Artful Southwest" by artTrekker. We found the first one (Santa Fe Style) four years ago, right after we began letterboxing and found  Cathedral Moon and Little Pot on this trip. Thanks to one of these, we bumped into a delightful and delicious place for lunch (but I can't tell you which or it might spoil the hunt!)  We ended our SF trip with aT's "Clay Menagerie" series, beautifully highlighting motifs from native pottery.

Speaking of great places to eat, we also found "Just One Slice" (near one of our two favorite pizza places in SF).  We enjoyed the clever and thought provoking "Read or Be Read" by Postal, as well as another thought provoking box: "Art is Everywhere" by Front Range Hiker in a beautiful park that was both nestled in a neighborhood and buried deep in a secluded wood. Then we found a great pair of boxes in a cute little city park (Amelia White Park) - "Dessert in the Desert" by rubberpeace (whom we missed on this trip  but had the wonderful pleasure of meeting on our last visit) and "Amelia's Rose" by Hi Desert (also another box by HD on Museum Hill). One of the things we really like about our visits to SF is getting lots of great LB ideas to share with our LB friends way back over in this corner of the world.

We found a number of boxes by  Astro D and Lionsmane with some wonderful moments in the beautiful landscapes of Santa Fe and surrounding areas. During our trip we encountered many amazing carves, clever and artful boxes and enjoyable adventures. That's what we really love about LBing- we get to see so many great things and places that otherwise we'd never encounter or be too busy to stop and take in. Letterboxing is great, isn't it?

New letterboxes planted in Woodway

This evening we planted two new letterboxes "A Is for Arboretum" (three boxes in the series) and "The Snake We Never Saw" at the Carleen Bright Aboretum. We checked on the last of the three original boxes we'd planted there a few years ago, but sadly, it was not to be found. Hopefully these new boxes will stick around for a while!

New Plant

Yesterday we planted a letterbox that we completed two years ago but hadn't gotten planted yet! It's called Bird in the Wetlands and it's a wonderful place to visit in Waco.  We also checked on Rock Hopper in Cameron Park which was still where it was supposed to be and had been visited a few more times than we knew about.

Galveston August 2010

We just returned from Galveston and found Bell Motel's Bishop’s Palace (a beautiful stamp fitting of the beautiful building). we also found Silver Eagle’s Brown Bomber 2, which was really cool because we’d just seen several Brown Pelicans dive bombing before arriving at the letterbox, so it was extremely educational! 

I was afraid I wasn't going to survive Bishop’s Palace because of the amount of blood I was losing to mosquitos! I high-tailed it back to the car with the box to escape, but in the process, let a bunch of them in the car. so of course we rolled down the window to shoo them out, and as soon as the window was down, the automatic window motor died! ACCCK! we sped away with the LB hostage to a less mosquito populated location around the corner to stamp in and try and get the window back up. fortunately it stayed up for the trip back to Waco!  My recommendation if you’re looking for Brown Bomber 2, is to make sure and have a stick! while I didn’t see any, this location was a perfect place for snakes! :-)

Charleston and Savannah

Ann and I took a trip to the Low Country while the boys stayed with my parents for the week. It was really wonderful for lots of reasons, but we restarted our letterboxing adventure (which had been virtually dormant for almost a year). We saw some beautiful parks and cemeteries, beautiful beaches, and some amazing hidden treasures throughout the area. We found eleven boxes on this trip. You can see them listed at http://travelin-ts.weebly.com/.

The Great Storm Goes Virtual

One of our Galveston letterboxes, "The Great Storm" had as part of its clues, a code that had to be deciphered from an historical marker on the Seawall at Galveston. Since the box was gone and the marker was destroyed by Hurricane Ike in September of 2008, I'd changed the status to "retired." I then realized I had a photo of the historical marker and decided to post it on the clue site and make a virtual version of this box. Click here to see how to find this now virtual box!

Texas Gulf Coast Boxes

Just returned from a trip to Port Aransas and want to thank the Boxhounds08 for all the boxes they've planted in the area. We found "Aransas Pass Shrimporee", "First Class Petty Officers", "Gem City of the Gulf Coast", and "Mr. Dewey's Curlew." Like many good letterboxes, these took us to great places we never would have otherwise encountered. In particular, we really liked Mr. Dewey's Curlew a lot. What a nice way to honor a friend and what a beautiful spot. We also looked for "Golden Fronted Woodpecker", located at a Nature Sanctuary, but the area where the box was supposed to be had been burned recently and we found no sight of the box.

Speaking of Gulf Coast boxes, we had two planted at Galveston ("The Great Storm" and "Just Off the Strand"), that we'd had mixed reports on, and dewberry was kind enough to check on them for us this past week and confirm that indeed they are both missing, likely casualties of Hurricane Ike, who followed the unnamed and terrifyingly damaging hurricane of 1900, 108 years later.