Happy Day!

In the past few weeks, I have received news of all of our planted boxes. All are in good shape with recent finders. What a wonderful blessing! Today I received word from a brand new letterboxer that our Hadley Mountain Fire Tower Letterbox is in good shape - all the way at the top of Hadley Mountain! That's a serious hike for a first letterbox! I was even happier to hear that the logbook is full - the box must have had many more visitors than have contacted me!

My poor four box series "Two-Faced" is waiting patiently in my pack to be planted. I have been so excited to have this series completed - I'm so happy with the carvings. If only I could get away for an afternoon to plant them. It is very hard when the baby is sleeping every afternoon!

The Blog is Back!

I think I almost forgot that I had this blog! Well, I'm back, and it is good to be back.

The most recent exciting boxing news is that our Great Hitchhiker Race Participant, WWI Flying Ace flew in for a landing on May 13 at the South Mountain Hitchhiker Hostel in Allentown, PA to steal first place away from Lance Armstrong! Poor Lance had been languishing a short hike away in the mystery box Fibonacci Treegonometree. Wanda and Pete helped little Snoopy steer a clear course from Rhode Island. Thanks, Wanda and Pete! It was a close race, since Lance legged it up the mountain only a short 12 days later with Wisconsin Hiker and Martini Man! Snoopy and Lance will now travel together in the Victory Lap PLB, which Lightnin' Bug is preparing. I carved a bonus for the PLB - Snoopy's Happy Dance HH will be released into the wild after he makes his rounds on the Victory Lap.

Since it has been harder to get out on long trips to box (and I've already found the close boxes), I've turned my attention to planting. This weekend I'll be planting a 4-box series called Two-Faced. Our hitchhiker, Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, has begun his long arduous journey to insult the universe, we wish him well, and pity those who find him. Other plants to come soon: Putting it Together, a three box series homage to Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George; a limited availability mystery box, also Sondheim related; a three box Celtic series in Hibernia Park, PA; and some other goodies!

Whole lotta boxin' goin' on! Part 2

Eek! My computer crashed while blogging two days in a row. I'll continue the saga of recent boxing events . . .

Soon after hearing about WWI Flying Ace, I began work on the stamp for our Steely Dan box for the Battle of the Bands Series in Tyler State Park in PA. I was a little nervous about it, because I chose a funky photograph of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen to use as my stamp image. I was also using a new (for me) carving material - Mastercarve. They are right - it cuts like butter! Well, it only took an hour and a half, and I was thrilled with the result! It really is possible to take a photo and turn it into a stamp! Here's what I did: I started with a black and white photo and worked on it in PaintShop Pro. I drastically heightened the contrast until the image looked carvable, but still retained details of the original photo. I made some other small adjustments (but I can't remember exactly what they were.) I printed the photo and then made a photocopy of it. Then I simply ironed the image onto the carving material, transferring all the fine details. Lastly, I carved away everything but the black areas. It was surprisingly easy to end up with really nice fine detail in the final stamp image!

This past Saturday, Caite (Gwenllian) and I headed up to meet with other boxers for Plantapalooza. We enjoyed meeting Janila and Barney of Team Little Dog, and Mizscarlet's husband, Buckaroo Bonzai, and children, Nevermore and No. 6. It was great to see Mizscarlet and Raindears again and of course, our organizer, Irene and Dude from Hikers & Hounds. Tyler SP is really beautiful, and with all the great stamps that were just planted, it should become a real letterboxing mecca! At the end of the day, we ended up with 15 boxes planted so far and a few more still to come soon. My favorite part of the day was meeting up after planting to enjoy dinner together at Isaac Newton's Pub in Newtown. Since Eric had to miss the day of boxing fun, I took a growler home for him filled with Left Hand ESB, the favorite brew of the boxers at dinner. After dinner, we had a fun time sneaking around the back of the parking lot to plant Mizscarlet's fun box called Specific Gravity (get it?). Very cute!

Whew! There's a lot of updating to do - including Awaiting Baby and the Boxes Planted and Found pages!

Whole lotta boxin' goin' on!

Well, relatively speaking! It has been a great month of letterboxing - and I really should have blogged sooner!

The first fun event was Bev's 2nd Annual SJ Letterboxing Gathering at Palmyra Cove on October 16th. Caite and I had such a fun day. We enjoyed meeting many other letterboxers. I loved hanging out with other boxers and exchanging while Caite hit the trail with NJ Carole and her son LuckyWolf and his friend Stamp Nazi. We also had a really nice time at Bev's carving class. Later, I planted the fruits of my labor as a Limited Edition Bonus Box for Saddler's Legacy - it will be available until Thanksgiving.

In late October, we received word from Starfish of Seattle that our Great Hitchhiker Race participant, WWI Flying Ace, had been found in Oregon! He had been moved there in early October by the Teachers who picked him up from his starting point at Schmitz Creek Park Letterbox in Seattle. Starfish reports that our lovable beagle will be travelling with them to Rhode Island for Thanksgiving. After enjoying his traditional dinner of toast and popcorn, he'll find a new temporary home and hopefully will start to fly south very soon! Soon after, we heard that Bon Jovi was on tour in North Carolina! The competition is heating up! Go, SNOOPY!

Saddler's Legacy is planted!

It's done! Beyond that, I even managed a trip to Trader Joe's, Walmart, and the music store, and I still got the clues posted! I feel like Superwoman today! Oh, I forgot, I also did laundry!

Well, it's not beautiful - but the new box is posted. I have to figure out how Fleur de Lis managed to put those nifty bookmarks in to keep some of her boxes on one page. Welp, no matter how primitive, the box and clues are there now. Who will be the first finder of Saddler's Legacy?

looks like a perfect day for planting!

Well, you know, if you put something out there for others to see, you end up committed to finally actually doing it! Here goes: my plan for the afternoon is to take the new box, Saddler's Legacy, and plant it. I mean, really, it's only been sitting, totally ready to go, for more than a month now, it's less than a 5 minute walk from my house, the weather is perfect - there's just no excuse for not getting it out there today! I only hope I can be as ambitious with getting the clues posted tonight! That's my plan - I'll check back to let you know whether it got done!

October - an active month for letterboxing!

Wow - it has been busy lately, but I'm really looking forward to all the letterboxing in store for this month! Gwenllian and I headed out to find B & E's boxes in the Armentrout Preserve in Ambler, PA on Saturday. We had a wonderful morning, finding three boxes along with a bonus box and a hitchhiker!

A few weeks ago, we sent out our hopeful racer in the Great Hitchhiker Race. The WWI Flying Ace has been waiting for a ride at the Schmitz Park Creek Letterbox in Seattle since he was planted there by Amanda from Seattle on September 19, 2004. Eight other racers are raring to go in Seattle, too. The goal is for them to find rides home to the South Mountain Hitchhiker Hostel in Allentown, PA. We hope Snoopy will fly home fast!

I've just ordered a bunch of Mastercarve and can't wait for its arrival! I've got my stamp image all ready for my Steely Dan box for the Plantapalooza in November. This was originally called the Battle of the Bands, organized by Hikers and Hounds. There will be a ton of boxes planted in Tyler State Park in PA - all tributes to great bands. Caite is doing a Groovelily box to commemorate her favorite band. I'm wracking my brains, trying to figure out how to make some really cool clues using Steely Dan lyrics for my box!

Coming up really soon is the 2nd Annual South Jersey Letterboxing Gathering, hosted by letterboxingbee! October 16 is the date, and I can't wait to see everyone again and meet plenty of new people, too!