100th Find

This morning, I got up a little early...ok, I confess...a LOT early, and headed south to do some boxing along Hwy 59, in The Woodlands, and in Lake Houston State Park. The weather was perfect! I had a good time following in Runs For Chocolate's footsteps as I collected items from her runner's goody bag. I had been anxious to see what her visual aide would be...I had in mind several different things, but the most obvious answer eluded me. It was a nice surprise. I enjoyed finding this series in Northshore Park. As you can see in the picture, it was a quite foggy in the area this morning.

After leaving North Shore Park, I headed down to the Montgomery County Nature Preserve and stamped into Baby Bear's Bedtime Stories. This was a nice trail, although I did have a hard time deciding where I should park. It was quiet and a gentle breeze was blowing. I highly recommend this find, too, as you will enjoy the scenery and get a little chuckle when you see the stamp.

If you were to follow the the routes to the boxes I found, you will see that I didn't find these Montgomery County boxes in the proper geographic order, as I did some "circling" in this unfamiliar territory. That being said...I am proud to say that I did stamp into every box I set out to find today. So, I went to the Alpenhaus Restaurant and stamped into The Pretzel LB. This one was my 100th find! I was thrilled with reaching this land mark before the year was out. I guess I will always have a special place in my heart for my first LB (Gibraltar of the Confederacy) and also my 100th.

After doing my tiny celebration with NUMBER 100, I went to the HEB Market and found Runs for Chocolate's Jacksonville Tomato Festival box. This box was carved by The Frye Team and hidden by RFC in our TX Festival Exchange. Even though I'd gotten a sneak preview (THANKS FRYE TEAM!), I wanted to officially stamp in.

After finishing up with all of these fantastic stamps, I ate lunch and was on the road again by noon. I headed back toward Highway 59 and headed South. I stopped in Splendora and picked up The Frye Team's Katrina Prayer Box. This is a very thoughtful box the Fryes placed in an appropriate location. The Frye's dedicated this box to those who were victims of the hurricane that struck TX/LA this year.

After jumping back in the car, I headed further south to Lake Houston State Park. Don't let the name fool ya...there is no access to the lake at this park. I checked in with the park ranger who told me that the hunting ban was back in full force (apparently they'd allowed a temporary hunt for the past few days), so I was free to hike anywhere in the park. I took the bridge over Peach Creek and headed towards the Polka Dots' Peach Creek Ranch. This was a well done stamp, and as far as I could tell, I was just the second person to stamp into it. As I was leaving the trail, I ran into some Boy Scouts who were entering the trail on their bicycles.

I headed back across the bridge and took the Magnolia trail to Baby Bear's Texas Twilight. This box was placed in April 2003, so it was like a treasure chest when I opened up the log book. It was also a terrific stamp. After I finished up and re-hid the box, I headed back North. I did stop in Livingston to pick up Hoppin' Down 59 by the Frye Team. Again, I had imagined this stamp would look like several different things, but I was surprised by what the picture turned out to be.

Thanks to: Baby Bear, Frye Team, Polka Dots, and Runs for Chocolate for giving me a great letterboxing day. I had a great time and hope to do it again soon!

A Weekend for Boxing

Blue Butterfly and I decided to take Friday afternoon off, drive to the D/FW area and find a few letterboxes. We started out by visiting the Dallas Arboretum, where BB's Flowers, Leaves, Birds & Trees is located. Even though I'd previewed the stamp before it was hidden, it was nice to be able to stamp in to this box. After leaving the arboretum, we went around White Rock Lake to find the one of Celtic Lions' Missing Keys. This search produced a pleasant hike and a great log book. This box has had many visitors and its great to see the personal stamps of other letterboxers. After stamping in here, we decided to help out the Lions again because they'd misplaced another key on another part of the lake. This location was a little more difficult to find, but we enlisted the help of the Dallas Park Services and a nice gentleman directed us to our destination. The boats, the sky, and the water were all beautiful to see and we did successfully find the other Missing Key.

Saturday morning, we rose early and headed to Kane Park in Arlington. We found Kantexan's Into the Woods and A-Bear's Pepper. Some rather large dogs who were not leashed happened upon us and jumped up on us, but the owners finally came around and called them off. This made us a little skiddish for a while, but we decided that nothing would scare us from our precious letterboxes! We searched and searched for Butterfly Hello, but we could not find it.

After finishing up with Kane Park, we decided to tackle Kantexan's Jazz Quartet Series. We started off in reverse order with the Piano. This was a nice park and a clean trail. We took note on the sign that all pets must be leashed and breathed a short sigh of relief. We found the Piano with ease, then headed south to find the Bass Guitar. The Bass Guitar was not difficult to find, but we did have a hard time opening the container. We finally got it open and were pleased to find our prize. So, we were off to the Drumset! We got to the park and found it difficult to locate this particular box. We searched the branches of two trees that fit the description in the clues. We could not find this box. Then, I got the idea that it may have fallen out of the tree and onto the ground, so I started searching under the leaves on the ground. EUREKA! I found the box. BB and I were so happy that we'd found the box....especially since we were so close to cutting our losses and going on. So...we open the box and there is a logbook, but no stamp. We were disappointed again. I searched the ground again to make sure the stamp wasn't there, but to no avail. So we stamped in and re-hid the box in the tree, and went off to find the Tenor Saxophone. BB and I found the Tenor Saxophone with little to no trouble and admired our new Jazz Trio.

Was our boxing day complete? No way! Next we went down to Cleburne State Park where we risked life and limb to pick up the Texas Tour Bus. This was also BB's 100th find...CONGRATULATIONS BLUE BUTTERFLY!!

We then drove through Joshua and picked up BB's Screechin' Owls. We also picked up a hitch hiker here. On our "way home", we stopped in Italy to pick up the Texas Passport Series-Italy stamp. By this time, Flopsy was getting anxious and wanted to join us in finding the box. So, we let him out, and as you can see in the picture, he was a great help in locating this box. Continuing back towards East Texas, we dropped in on the East Texas Arboretum (with only about a half hour to spare before the sun went down and the garden closed) and pick up the Texas Passport Series-Athens stamp. I hope to go back to this garden in the spring time when the flowers are blooming, as I'm sure it will be gorgeous.

That was our last stop of the evening. We finally made it back home at about 7:30 p.m. (after having started boxing at about 7:00 this morning). We are tired, but we are thrilled with our finds and our adventures for the past two days.

Merry Christmas and Happy Trails.

Personal Traveler

As a young reader, I was a big fan of Beverly Cleary's Ramona Quimby series. Her attempts at doing the right thing, and just plain having fun often get her in trouble, but there is always a lesson to be learned. As a tribute to Ramona, I have carved out a personal traveler with her likeness.

If you'd like to get a good impression of Ramona, just ask me, "Did you see Ramona Quimby playing on Klickitat Street today?"

Fun News

I received an e-mail from the Frye Team today saying they found my Land of the Little Angel letterbox. It's always fun to hear from some one who has found and enjoyed your box.

Later this week, Blue Butterfly and I are going to take a trip to the DFW metroplex to do some boxing there. We have been busy mapping out our route and making our big plans. We can hardly wait for our newest adventure!

FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY

There will be a special letterbox at the San Augustine ISD band concert tonight. The box will be disguised as a Christmas present under the first pew of the church. The gift tag will read, TO: MIKE TYSON. Please do not stamp in while inside the church. Re-hiding the box is optional. If time doesn't allow you to stamp in before the concert, return the box to me on another day.

Cradle of Texas

I was finally able to plant my Cradle of Texas box this evening. I've been trying to do this for most of the past couple of weeks, but have been unable to. After getting off work a "little" late tonight, I risked getting frost bite in my fingers to plant the box. I am a little worried about it, because there are Christmas lights on the bush where the cradle is now living, and it might get discovered when the clean up crew comes through. I'll hope for the best and just pray that finders won't get discovered finding or rehiding!

Happy Trails!