Letterboxing with Lucy Locket: If You Like to Talk to Tomatos.....

Saturday, June 13, was the Tomato Fest in Jacksonville and we attended an event there hosted by Barefoot Lucy. BFL sent out the clues on Friday night, but there was a storm in my area, so I had to shut down my computer prematurely. Luckily, I was going to be meeting Blue Butterfly, Nac Trail Cat, and Puddle Splasher, and I hoped they had better luck than I did!

I met the ladies in the parking lot of Walmart on the morning of the event. By the time I got there, they were already discussing the clues and mapping out a plan. After BB went in and got some water and ice for us, we loaded up the van and headed out. BB was the driver, and NacTrailCat was the navigator.

We found a parking space and headed toward the festival on foot. We were quickly recognized by BeeMom who had a clue for us. First however, we had to tell her the Letterboxer's Bible Verse. We quoted from the book of Matthew and collected our prize.

We walked by the Ham Radio Operator's booth and I asked them if they had a clue, but they just looked at me as if I had two heads. No luck there. Next, we went to the Democrat booth and asked there. EUREKA! One of the ladies knew what we were talking about. We told her our "unusual fact" and collected another clue.

Barefoot Lucy told us that in order to get one of the clues, we'd have to know who won the 2006 Soccer World cup and advised us to walk toward the stadium where the soccer tournament was being held. When we got there, I asked a group that looked like they were a soccer group who won the last World Cup. They told us Italy. Armed with that information, Blue Butterfly called BFL to get the clue. She passed the phone off to me, and we got the information.

After this, we found a water gun booth and told the Scout Leader there some of the Boy Scout Laws and earned another clue. After this, we headed off to find some boxes!

The first box we looked for was the one given to us verbally. Once we FINALLY figured out the location, we were searching through the Asian Jasmine when we saw a fellow waving to us. It was Gryzzled Gryphon. He and Frost Maiden had the box and were busy stamping in. We joined in the fun, then he re-hid the box and we went our seperate ways.

From here, NacTrailCat took the lead and led us around downtown Jacksonville to four more festival boxes and one accidental find. We met up with JBK, LadyBugTree, PurpleNic, Maydelle Queen Bee, and PrincessA in the process. After finding the boxes downtown, we were in a hurry to get out to Lake Jacksonville because we only had a thirty minute window to get this clue. PurpleNic and LadyBugTree joined us as we headed out to find "the man". As we passed by the Lake Jacksonville sign, BB commented that there used to be a letterbox there. After we finally found "the man" and asked for the clue, we were on our way to find this fishy box. We read the clue and realized the box was in the same place that Blue Butterfly had commented about. We went back to the Lake Jacksonville sign and stamped in.

After leaving the lake, we went back to the festival. We wanted to find Otto from The Simpsons to see if he had a clue for us. We walked down the streets and did not find him. We found out that Otto did not make it to the festival, so we were done with letterboxing for the day. Some of our group grabbed some tomatos, then we headed to Legends cafe.

When we got to Legends, people came in at various times, enjoyed the cool air, the shade, and the food. We were able to make exchanges with Frost Maiden, Beach Bum TX, and Pink Cookie. I think this was the first event for all three of these letterboxers.

I had great fun at this event, met some new people, chatted with old friends and found letterboxes. What more could a letterboxer ask for??

Stamps I earned this day: