On Monday, I traveled to the other side of town to meet a friend and sell off one of my old textbooks from last semester. We were originally going to meet half-way, and then when I found out where she lived, I just had to jump at the chance to drive over there and find some boxes!
I was early getting to her side of town, so I stopped by a park a block or two from the Starbucks, and went after Yuri Gagarin by rockin d. I really enjoyed the mini-history lesson provided in the clue - I'm not old enough to remember stuff like the space race and whatnot that occurred with the Cold War (even though, I most certainly do remember the Cold War ending). It was a bit chilly out, and I had a lot of trouble checking my cell phone for the time with my gloves on. The area was absolutely gorgeous - all the trees were bare, but the woods were so thick with them that you couldn't see the trail after a curve. And the park had this awesome bridge - I love a well-designed bridge, so this was icing on the cake for my walk. And the stamp! Oh, all I can say is WOW!
After I met with my friend and had a nice chat over coffee, I headed over to Chisholm Park to find Duck, Duck, Goose! by PuddleSplasher. I've found a couple of her boxes in the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens before, so I knew this was going to be a great box. It's been in place since 2005 - easily making it the oldest box that I've found. The park was really nice, and there were lots of puppies who were walking their people. I got to pet the most adorable dog (a Shih Tzu, which are always cute!). I actually got to break out my mini-repair kit and add a baggie to the box - since the logbook was getting a bit full, people had started adding paper scraps, and the logbook and paper pieces weren't being protected. And I learned something important while looking for this one - which, of course, I'll cover at the end of the post!
I wandered around lost for a while, and then found the park where rockin d planted Heliocentric Cosmology. This one was a quick find, and I really had a blast looking through the log book. Apparently, on Thanksgiving, a grandmother took her grandkids for a walk at this park, and they happened upon the box. They added a sweet note and several stickers to the logbook and put it back in place. If you're in the area and haven't gotten this one yet, I recommend going after it - if only to reassure yourself that there are really nice noxers out there who will put our boxes back in place and hidden instead of swiping them or throwing them away!
After being lost some more, I finally found Rickel Park. When I looked down at the clues for the boxes there, I realized I was in the wrong parking lot on the wrong street. So, I drove over to the starting point in the clues. There were two boxes I found in this park - A Sunset in Rickel Park from rockin d, and part of the Texas State Symbols: Vittles Series by Black Widow. I never realized there were such hilly areas in the Metroplex, and boy, were my legs killing me Tuesday! I obviously need to go boxing down in Hill Country to condition them a bit more! The box by rockin d was great - and even though it was the middle of the day, I can certainly see why it would make a great spot for watching a sunset - it's beautiful! I thoroughly enjoyed Black Widow's storyline for the clue, and managed to find the Chuck Wagon (the stamp and logbook are both more than worth the trip!). The Chili and Dutch Oven are apparently gone - the wooden fence they were at has been replaced during the current construction at the park with a sturdy metal one. I was unable to find the Jalapeno patch - but this very well could have been that I was really hungry and my legs had turned into ice posts quite some time ago.
So, I manage five boxes in one day! The parks were all pretty empty - probably due to the cold weather. This seemed to make it the perfect day for bundling up and boxing!
So, here are today's Lessons Learned Letterboxing:
- When clues use trees as landmarks - like go past the big oak and two cedar trees, for example - these might be better to get when there are actually leaves on the trees. I spent a bit of time not sure of if I was even close because there weren't leaves to identify trees. So, maybe really the lesson here isn't that I should get these boxes in the summer, but rather, I need to learn how to identify trees by their bark - an endeavor that is most unlikely to be sure!
- I really should eat breakfast before leaving the house, and lunch when I'm at a place that serves it in between boxes. By the time I got back to the car after the last box, I was getting dizzy. And I was boxing by myself, so that could have turned out really bad. Oh, wait! I have granola bars in my bag - why didn't I remember that when I was dizzy on Monday?
- Having more than one blog is a good thing - this is my first blog, and I want it to be all about the traditional boxes. But, I'm really enjoying LTCs and want to ramble about other things. So, I've started a second blog, which will have pictures of my paintings and other artistic endeavors (if there's a post on LTCs, I'll start it off with a spoiler warning!), and random rambles about what ever I have on my mind occasionally. So, if you are so inclined, you are more than welcome to wander over to Rogue Artist's Artistic Endeavors and take a peek.
Happy (and Warm!) Hunting!
Rogue Artist
