Letterboxing

I don't know what it is about letterboxing but I love it!
My family groans whenever I bring it up. I think it is so much fun! I would like to save up for a GPS and give geocaching a try. Mentioning the GPS did get some approving grunts from my men. ; ) But, they didn't think going to look for 'boxes' was the best use for one. Imagine that!

Maybe it's the letterboxing adventures that we've been on!?!
Some have been great and others have been um, well, not so great. The first one we did was a success. Grand Daddy Don was visiting when we decided to give this a try! The directions led us to a little, out of the way park. We counted paces this way and that, figured out a clue and came to a large tree. Nathan reached up in the tree and found the box! What could be better than a real life treasure hunt? And I was hooked! What fun!

I didn't realize that we were suppose to bring our own ink pad on these adventures, so the stamp we found and put in our book is barely visable.

The next box we tried to find, was on a field trip at a historical sight downtown. We figured out the clues, looked really silly looking under the steps of several buildings and found nothing. That box was missing.

One Saturday when my hubby was working, I decided to take the kids on another letterboxing adventure. This one was at a nature trail. We probably walked a quarter of mile and followed the clues until we came to two large trees. The next clue required a compass, which I hadn't brought. (minor detail!) That dilemma had all five of us circling these two trees over and over again. We finally gave up on that and went to search for another box that didn't look far away.
After walking for maybe a mile, and having two separate groups of bicyclists ask me if we were lost and needed help, I started to wonder about my sanity. I hadn't brought any water or a cell phone and we were in the middle of what looked like nowhere, looking for a Tupperware box!!! Realizing that I could get really lost, I decided it was time to find our way out of there before we died of thirst among the palmettos! We were doing a unit study on Lewis and Clark at the time and we were starting to feel like we had a lot in common with them . I'll never forget this! When Joy saw the car, she changed their famous 'ocean' quote into "Oh, the joy! Car in sight!" We laughed and laughed. It was probably a year before anybody took me up on letterboxing again. : )

But my kids will tell you, that the next time was awesome! We did it in CO at a family reunion. Boulder has great letterboxing! Michele and I took all the cousins and found two boxes! It was so much fun. If you haven't tried it, it can be really fun!

Bring:

~a little notebook or pad to stamp the rubber stamps on (some letterboxers carve their own to go with the sight the box is located, which is neat)

~ink, in case the box doesn't have any

~a rubber stamp for each member of your group to stamp in the notebook of the box (it's fun to see where other people who have found the box are from and what their stamps look like) Using a stamp that matches your personality or something you like is fun. (there are kits to help you make your own. Thank you Jen, for getting me one of those for Christmas)

~a camera for fun photos when you find the box

And a tip Michele and I would give, after doing it in Boulder is: don't wear heels or flip flops! ; )

~Becky

I'd love to hear about your adventures if you've tried letterboxing