I love it when a plan comes together!

A letterboxing dream has come true this week. For as long as I've been letterboxing, I have been thinking of this plant. My Grandfather was a hiker and a tinkerer. He had, according to my Dad, more ideas than Ford. He was always improving on everything~ closets were installed with car door switches so that when you opened the door the light automatically came on; gadgets were created for everything from my toys to my Grandmother's kitchen items. He met my Grandmother in a hiking club and would often threaten to go take a long walk in the woods. In short, he would have loved letterboxing. And he would have loved creating clever hiding contraptions, much like those that X Marks the Spot makes. Only, I found letterboxing a year after he passed, so I never had the opportunity to pick his brain, let alone hike or plant boxes with him.

Grandpa was the oldest city volunteer when he worked at the Central Library Branch from January 1995 to August 2000. While he was there, he worked in the cataloging department, receiving new books and preparing them for check out. One of his jobs was to apply the various labels to the books and other media. The labels came on large spools and would get tangled as they laid on the counter. He knew there had to be a faster and more efficient way to peel the labels and apply them. He crafted a large standing spool rack where rolls of labels could sit side by side, ready to roll and peel. He made several, enough to accommodate the many volunteers who worked at the various cataloging departments throughout the city.

Planting letterboxes in a library is nothing new; however, forging a relationship with the Library Managers, creating a fake biography, and cataloging it in the card catalog (yes! I'm a published author!), and placing it on the shelves in the collection, well, I'm not sure that's been done.

Needless to say, my Grandmother, who is 98 years old and of sound mind, was completely over the moon when we took her to the library on Tuesday to plant the box.

Oh, did I mention that the other branches didn't want to be left out? They have requested boxes at each branch. I plan to make each plant different; container, location, kind of clue, and even carver. I've asked different letterboxers that I have met along the way, from different parts of the country, to send stamps for the other branches.

So far, 3 of the 10 libraries have boxes with clues on AQ. The rest are on the way!

Finally! Good things come to those that wait!

Well, I have finally installed my latest box.  Actually, my husband did the installing.  I have been working on this one for over a year.  I found the location and it just asked me to put a box there.  Nelson and I immediately knew where and how to install this one.  I knew exactly which cipher I wanted to use to encode the clue.  I knew exactly what to carve.  I transferred my image to my PZKut and it sat on my desk for 8 months.  I was totally intimidated by it.  Thankfully, in the meantime, I went to St. Louis for the LBCon and took an excellent needle carving class by RaqsEnigma.  After completing a few stamps by needle carving, this stamp didn't look so intimidating anymore.

Once the stamp was done, I was ready to find the right container and logbook.  Wouldn't you know it, but that week's mail brought my NC Treasure Hikers raffle prize.  Inside was the perfectly sized Lock N Lock and logbook!  I assembled it all, and handed it over to Nelson.  He took it from there and with my dad as lookout, installed the box yesterday.

Sometimes I push too hard to do things too quickly.  I get impatient when I'm excited.  I'm glad I took my time with this one.  It's one of my favorites.

http://www.atlasquest.com/showinfo.html?gBoxId=140414

November Nor'easter

The storm took out quite a lot of beach, as you can see from these pictures. To give you an idea what it used to look like, there was about a 5 foot length of the deck that connected the walk over the dune line to the switchback ramp portion. As you can see, you would need lots more than 5 feet now to reach the ramp! We estimate that approximately 45 feet of the depth of the dune is now gone. The dune height remains the same.

Sadly, my cuckoo clue box, Chesapeake Sunset, appears to have been removed sometime after the storm, perhaps when the city barricaded the end of the decking.

When walking the beach 2 days after the storm, we saw many people doing the same. One group of men were moving a catamaran down the beach. Amazingly, it was the only boat we saw that had no damage. How could this be? Well, it had been buried in the dune by the last major storm 2 years ago. This storm uncovered it and moved it 8 blocks down the beach! These folks were happy to have their boat back!

Anything to get to the box!

Do you really think a little wet cement would stop a boxer from getting his prize? Of course not! You go around, right? Sure, unless you are 5!

Almost Heaven Update

I am back "home" in the valley. Nothing relaxes me more than being in this magical place. No snow, but it is in the forecast for the week. I celebrated a LBing milestone yesterday~ my first find was one year ago, right here in this valley.

We headed out this morning to the SP to check on the box I planted in Aug. No recorded finds on line. We were derailed. The road to the golf course and trail head is closed for culvert repairs. After some lunch and discussion with the staff at the lodge front desk, we headed back out and past the road closed signs. Parked right up with the construction vehicles. Guess the crew has off for the week. We grabbed all of gear and bundeled up (38 degrees and windy) and headed across the construction crew's bridge. We hiked about a mile down the golf course to the trail head.

No lush ferns this time of year, but it is a beautiful trail nonetheless.

Continued on around the trail and located the box. Opened it up and it looked as if it had never been touched. Everything was bone dry (love those LnLs!) and neatly in its place. I opened the logbook to be sure and WOHOO! 5 pages of finds. It looks as if folks were there in Aug. and Oct. I love that I was able to share this spot with others.

Boy, the beaver dam sure looks different in the winter!

Maybe this will help...

OK, so on our recent drive from West Virginia to Tennessee, we had our first opportunity to travel on the interstates in West Virginia. I must say, they are really clean! Imagine, you are driving through beautiful mountains, on a nicely paved high-speed interstate, and the view is not destroyed by litter. Well, I figured out why.

We're cruising at 60+ mph and I'm starting to notice the highway signs. So many miles to such-and-such a place, rest stop in so many miles, etc. Suddenly, a large no littering sign comes into view. I had to do a double take! (Of course that means looking expectantly for the next one to come into view!) Then I see it:

No kidding! (OK, I didn't take this exact photo while speeding down the road, but this sign is EXACTLY like the ones I kept seeing.)

$25,000!!!!!

Why don't we have laws like this here in Virginia? Clearly it's working in West Virginia!

BARF!

Well, if coming home from vacation didn't already make me want to barf...

Thursday night was the BARF! event hosted by BullDawg and Trailing Emmerson. (What a terrific event stamp!) It was a lovely, cool evening and we all had a great time laughing and sharing stories. If you missed it, you missed a real treat. The elusive Zodiac actually made an appearance. Maybe he felt comfortable joining us since there were only 4 of us at the table. He is a very interesting character!

Hopefully next time BullDawg and Trailing Emmerson are down for a visit they will have some time to do some boxing with us. Maybe BullDawg will post the clue to the box they planted this trip, too (hint, hint).

Final thoughts? Bobguyman46 said it well, "A great letterboxer is not judged on how many finds or plants he or she has; the true test of greatness is based on how many friends the person has made during the hobby." I have added 2 more letterboxing friends to my count. :)