Christmas Solo Trip-Day One

On December 27, I set off on a trip with the express intent of FINALLY letterboxing at Brazos Bend State Park. I left my home during the late morning and headed south. Since I was going to be driving through the Houston area, I definitely wanted to try to get the boxes in Mother of Five's Mythical Creatures Series. I was a contributor to this series a couple of years ago and had been wanting to see all the stamps that were a part of this series. I made it to Terry Hershey Park in the late afternoon and made my way down the path and followed the clues.

There are five boxes in the "beginning" part of this series. I wanted to get all of these, plus hopefully a few from the second part of the series. I easily found the first box. I picked it up and made my way to the second box. At the location of the second box, there were children at the swingsets, so I opted to try again on my way out. Going toward the third box, I made my way through the woods and over a couple of bridges to the site of box #3. Unfortunately, I could not find this one. ON TO BOX #4! I twisted and turned along the path and found the appropriate landmark. YES! I found the box. There was a nearby bench, so I stamped into Box #1 and Box #4. I returned Box #4 to it's hiding spot and continued along the trail to the next box. I searched for Box #5, but I came up with nothing. :-( By this time, I knew it was getting too late for me to safely continue on to the next part of the series, so I headed back to the beginning of the trail. I stopped to look for the second box, but could not find the landmark that was indicated in the clues. After giving up the search, I continued back toward the parking lot, replacing Box #1, then headed on to the hotel.

Don't worry...I'll be back for the rest of the series some day!!

Annual December Trip--Part Two

The Rotunda

On Sunday morning, we left the beautiful home of Bell Motel and headed down to the capitol grounds. We felt like this would be the perfect time to get these boxes.....and it was! There were three boxes on the capitol grounds, two by Bell Motel and one by Princess S. It was fun roaming around the capitol, even though it was VERY COLD.





Our next stop was at an undisclosed location to find Pacifickle's Brunch Series #1 LB. This was a quick drive-by, then we headed out to find Bell Motel's The Head of St. Michael LB. After having passed the location a couple of times, we finally pulled into the parking garage next to the museum. We stamped into this BEAUTIFUL box, admired the sculptures, then headed on our merry way.





Our next stop was a local Austin cemetery. Here, we added to our Governor's Series collection by Boots Tex and also found the Oh, Susannah! LB by LSQ. After paying our respects here, we wanted to make one more stop before heading home. Blue Butterfly had played the Game of Life and we wanted to reap the rewards for it! We made our way to the location of this box and stamped into Silver Eagle's The Game of Letterboxer Life-TX Edition. We were thrilled to have stamped into another one of SE's game series.





That was the last stop for the day. After this, we headed back north and east. PSGuru met us in Palestine to pick up Blue Butterfly, then we each headed to our homes. It was a great weekend filled with lots of fun, friends, and hospitality. Thanks to all of the Texas and Utah Letterboxers who made our weekend great!

Lucy Locket on a cold December morning!

Annual December Trip--Part One

Mt. Bonnell

Blue Butterfly and I arrived in Austin at the Bell Motel late Friday night. We were greeted here by the wonderful "staff" of the hotel. They greeted us with specially made cookies, so we chatted over cookies and tea, then headed off to bed.

BB and I woke up early on Saturday morning. We devised a plan, then headed off! Our first stop was Zilker Park. We made our way to the Austin Science and Nature Center (one section of Zilker) to find a few boxes there. We started off by finding one of Boots Tex's governors. After paying our respects to the governor, it was game time! We were thrilled to be the first finders of Chutes and Ladders by Silver Eagle. His game series is proving to be a lot of fun before you even get to the box!!

We looked at our next clue and realized we'd missed part of the instructions. We were supposed to pay attention to the owl exhibit and make some notes before getting on the trail, so we backtracked to the trail head and made the necessary notes. After this, we easily found the box called Oct. 09. Now, it was time for us to climb a "few" steps to get A View From the Top. We got to the top, enjoyed the view of downtown from the peaceful serenity of the park, then found the box. On our way back down, we ran into Cancan, Anna Bee, and CW Sun Seeker. We chatted for a bit and made lunch plans.

Our next stop was to find the Little Women: Beth LB. This one was easy to find and a bench was provided for us to sit on. Before we were done with the box, the trio found us again! We made our way back towards the original trail, then took seperate paths.

At this point, BB and I decided to leave the nature center and head to a different part of the park. We wanted to find Oh, Tannenbaum LB because it was a limited time box AND because we'd heard rave reviews. We made our way over to the pool area and found the trail head. We were led down to a stream and found the main box. While I was digging out the main box, BB found the ornament boxes. We were delighted to find and stamp into this one! It was a lot of fun.





At this point, we knew if we wanted to meet Cancan and the gang at 1:00, we'd better get to moving. We drove to a sandwich shop and grabbed sandwiches, then made it out to Mt. Bonnell. Unfortunately, we didn't get there until 1:30 and there was no sign of them. So, we pulled out our lunch and had a lovely lunch at the top of the mountain. There is a letterbox here, but it was too crowded for us to attempt it. :-( We took our time here and took pictures, then headed back down the mountain. It was at that point that BB remembered---we were supposed to meet at 12:30, not 1:00. Oh dear!





Our next stop was at The Oasis where Baby Bear has a box hidden. Unfortunately, it looks like there is new construction in the area where the box might be. We weren't able to go after this one inconspicuously. So, we decided to head off to another park to find the Let's Have A Picnic Series. This series is on a trail in a leashless dog park. There are seven boxes in this series, but we stamped into only five. We had fun crossing the creek several times on the rocks and stones. By the time we stamped into the last box, it was getting late and we really didn't want to get stuck in the dark, so we hurried back to the trail head.





It was time for us to head to the Hula Hut for the big event. When we arrived, we found Bell Motel, Whiz Gee, Pacifickle, and a few others already there. We had a great time that night eating, stamping, and visiting! Thanks to Cancan for hosting this event for us. We were so excited to meet CW Sunseeker, who came from out of state.



After leaving the Hula Hut, we went back to the Bell Motel, where CW Sunseeker and her four legged letterboxing partner Jasmine joined us. Again, our lovely hosts provided us with late night snacks and great conversation before we went to sleep for the evening.

Blue Butterfly