Four-legged Friend Series

After all these years of living in Arlington, I have actually never gone to River Legacy. For that matter, I haven't been to most of the parks in our city - letterboxing has now given me a reason to get out of the house and out into nature.

After last week's mini-adventure, my son has been bit by the boxing bug just as much as I have. Also, I had asked my folks down south if they had ever been boxing, and if there were any really awesome boxes we absolutely must find next time we're down there. They had never heard of it, so they did some research, and have now been bit too. :)

For Agent X, getting to go was a reward for good behavior this week. At first, he didn't want to get up this morning - Saturday is our usual sleeping in day. But as soon as I said, "So, what happened to going letterboxing this morning?", he hopped right up. I gave him the choice of looking for Guasco, or going to River Legacy and finding Haunted by Waters and Cowboy, or the Four-legged Friends Series.

Since I just carved his sig stamp the other night, he was anxious to get to use it on his very first find. Since several of the choices were listed on AQ as unknown, he decided that he wanted to go to River Legacy, so that we had a better chance of finding at least one that he could stamp into.

Once we settled on going to River Legacy for our hunt, I set about writing all the clues down - for the series, Haunted by Waters and Cowboy. And, Agent X started getting impatient, so I set him to getting together all of the supplies we were going to need. Even though I told him to pack 4 bottles of water, he had the wonderful foresight to pack 6.

We got a very late start - 11ish is already getting pretty hot in Texas at this time of year. On our drive to the park, we decided to go after the series and then if we still had energy afterward, get the others on our way back home.

We got to the park and set off on the trail. It was a beautiful walk. Nice and shady. There were several little well-beaten trails off of the main trail that led off into really nice little areas. Some had benches, some had really pretty dragonflies, some had absolutely gorgeous views of the river.

The kiddo did a great job while we were on the trail. He pointed out several really cool spiderwebs, and a lot of dragonflies. He figured out which plant kept leaving little sticker seed-pods on our jeans. He had a cool butterfly land on his leg while we were stamping into one of the boxes. He did a great job as a look-out, and I think that his uber-friendly Hello's to everyone we saw actually worked well to have people not think twice about why we were sitting on the side of the trail.

At one point, he was looking behind a tree for a box, and leaned on the tree since I had warned of oncoming noxers. Part of the tree promptly fell off into his hand, revealing a mass of termites underneath, and he ran out back onto the trail with a speed I've rarely seen in my child. The oncoming noxers of course had heard his "AAAACCCKKK!!!!", and they had a nice chuckle with us about it.

On our way back to the car, we found a really cool turtle sitting on a retaining wall. We sat and watched it for a while. Agent X figured out that every time we moved quickly, it would pull it's head in further because he was getting scared. During the rest of our walk back, he made sure to warn every person we met about the turtle and asked nicely for them to not scare the turtle. It was really cute.

We had such a great time. We only found three of the seven in the series, but it was such a beautiful walk that the kiddo didn't even care we didn't find them all. He was just thrilled that we had found any of them. We were so exhausted by the time we got back to the car that we decided to go home for the day. Two and a half hours in the Texas mid-day heat is about all I can take nowadays.

So here's the summary of today's lessons learned in letterboxing:

• More water is good.
• I have to remember to actually pack an extra bag just for trash; we MUST encourage Agent X's desire to better the trail by picking up litter.
• Bug spray should never be forgotten. There were way too many mosquitos feasting on my arms today.
• Although it's smart to keep all the letterboxing related stuff together at home, it's even smarter to have the stamps, ink and logbooks easily accessible in the pack. I got awfully tired of opening up the whole thing by the time we reached the second box. Moving everything we were actually using to a front pocket of the bag made it not only easier to stamp up, but also made it easier to trick noxers into thinking I was digging for bottled water.
• I really need to get some printer ink. Writing out that many clues took forever this morning, which of course just allowed outside to heat up even more.

Happy trails and inky fingers!
Rogue Artist

Second Find and Family Time

So, I went hunting again today. I was running a whole bunch of errands with the kiddo, and decided that we had enough time to run to the park. I had attempted this box the other day, but there were Scouts all over the place, so I had to come back.

Before we headed out of the house, I double checked my letterboxing kit - currently a huge ziploc bag with multiple smaller ziploc baggies in it. There was actually a fabulous thread on Atlas Quest the last day or two all about what people keep in their letterboxing kits. One of the folks, Mama Cache, compiled all of the answers to the threads into a list on her blog over here. I made sure this time to have the stuff I forgot the other day - namely something to clean the stamps with.

This find was really a lot of fun for me. I had really enjoyed the clue and walk the other day. Today, I really enjoyed getting to share this with my son. So, I gave the kiddo a quick run-down of what letterboxing is. Explained that we had to be sneaky, because we didn't want anyone to see what we were doing. And of course the question came up "Well, what do I tell someone if they ask what we're doing? Do I have to lie?". And the perfect answer to this flashed into my head - "No, sweetie, I don't want you to lie. You tell them your mama said never talk to strangers and you let me answer any questions they have." Yay - reinforcing honesty as a good thing, reinforcing not talking to strangers, and not having to really be worried about it, since the park was empty.

He thought the whole sneaky thing was really cool - sorta like we were spies trading secret messages. He's even asked if he can go boxing again with me, and if we could make him his own stamp. He's decided that he should have the trail name Agent X - I think because it's so spy-sounding.

So, this was a microbox. At least, what I think is considered a microbox. So now, I've learned something new to add to my list of stuff I've learned...

1. Keep small pieces of paper or cardstock in the letterboxing kit on which to stamp the small sig stamp. Not all boxes have logbooks due to size contraints.
2. I really really need to get a logbook - this whole folded index card thing is starting to be irritating, and it's only my second find. Maybe I should make one using normal book-binding. Or maybe I should stop being so difficult and just go find a nice blank book like the one I planned on using but can't find.
3. I'm going to need a heck of a lot more pink stuff if the kiddo and the hubby are both going to start joining me on my adventures. I was hoping to use the remainder of what I have to carve some for plants, but it's starting to look like I'll need it for sig stamps. What a nice problem to have. :-)
   

My adventures begin...

Decided last week that the family should take a "staycation" this summer. So, I started looking online for fun things to do around town. Stumbled across letterboxing. Remembered reading an article in Family Fun many moons ago about it. Remembered my mom telling me I'd enjoy it after she read a different article about it. And the wheels in my head started turning....

Started considering letterboxing... June 3, 2009
Found LbNA site and Atlas Quest
Carved first stamp out of an eraser because I was too impatient for my supplies to arrive from Stampeaz... June 8, 2009.
Supplies arrived from Stampeaz and carved first stamp out of the pink stuff.. later on June 8, 2009.

First find... June 9, 2009 (Man's Best Friend)

Things I've learned today while letterboxing:

1. Don't forget the baggie with the wet paper towels in it at your desk at work - you end up with ink on the inside of your shirt that way.
2. Just because a clue says drive-by or 5-10 minute walk does not mean that you'll find it that quickly; it could take A LOT longer..
3. No matter how "short" it's supposed to be, bring water - the Texas sun is hot after 5 minutes of walking, no matter how nice it was when you got out of the car.
4. Watch out for thorny vines - they jump out and bite you when you least expect it.
5. Jeans, although smart to wear while letterboxing, do not provide complete protection from said jumping thorny vines.
6. Be prepared for noxers to have overtaken the area - you might have to come back another day even if you do find the right place.
7. No matter how disappointed or agitated you may be, it is unacceptable to cause injury to said noxers, especially when it's a bunch of kids. Go home, lick your thorny vine wounds, and come back another day.
8. Watch your step - if you're walking and observing the pretty butterfly, it's easy to not notice the huge rock that jumped on the path, intent on twisting your ankle.
9. Same goes for cool looking lizards, snakes and birds.
10. The safest think to do is actually STOP on the trail while you admire nature; that way only thorny vines will sneak up on you.
11. Planters really do apprecite comments, even if you don't find their box, and they really are quite nice. So make sure to comment, even if those darned noxers prevented you from stamping in.
12. It was really smart to have different sized personal stamps. Although it wasn't so smart to make one out of cheap eraser because you were so impatient, because after one stamp-in, it's already sorta crumbly.

First virtual plant - June 9, 2009 (The First Immortal)

1. Virtuals are fun to make.
2. I need more clip art on my computer.

So concludes today's adventures in letterboxing... Hopefully I'll have more fun with it tomorrow.