let's go letterboxing

The girls have some friends who have been letterboxing for a while now and I thought it sounded like a fun project and we should participate. Several months after first learning about all of this I finally got my act together and got the necessary supplies for us to begin and this weekend we did our first letterboxing adventure. I thought we'd start with a letterbox that a friend planted, the friend who first told me about this fun hobby. This small tribute seemed only appropriate.

The basic idea is you visit a letterboxing website (so far I've only looked at the one linked above, but there are others and there are boxes all over the world) to get the clues to finding a letterbox in your area. You bring a stamp, notepad, ink pad, and pen with you and inside the letterbox you'll find a notepad and stamp. You take their stamp and mark your notebook and record the date and location of the box, and you imprint your stamp in their notepad along with your letterboxing username and date so the result is everyone has a log of who found which boxes. After you complete the exchange you seal the box back up and hide it where you found it so that someone else can find it. We are the "fergyfive". Not original, I know.



I printed out the clues to our first box, located in a nearby open space preserve. The girls were really excited as I was talking up this new "adventure" for them all morning.

"What does the paper say to do next?" asked Kate.

I read an instruction or direction, then Kate and Allison kind of looked at each other, a bit puzzled, and then Erin clarified where to go, "This way! C'mon guys!" and took off running, then the twins rushed off behind her. After several yards they all stopped.

"What does the paper say to do next?" shouted Allison. All of this was very amusing to the other people who were walking along the trails.

I read, and Erin interpreted, and they ran, and on and on it went, until we arrived at the right location and found the prize.



Darn blurry photo, oh well.



I got a stamp for each girl and a pink ink pad. It's hard to see, but this is Kate's stamp, a sleeping doggie:



With stamps exchanged and our first success recorded in their notepad and ours, we placed the letterbox back in it's hiding place.

"Now we have to find our way outta here!" said Allison.
"I know the way!" answered Erin, and they tore off down the trail again.

Everyone agreed that letterboxing was great fun and they were anxious to find another one, which I should have prepared for and printed out, but didn't. We got a late start doing this one and everyone was getting hungry for lunch so it was time to head back home anyway. Maybe next time we'll try a multiple box excursion.