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!