Our start was slow, cold and icy. Santa Fe and the northeast part of New Mexico received some snow on Tuesday and Wednesday which caused some driving difficulties on I-40 headed east. By the time we reached Amarillo we were already tired and a little stressed. The trees in Amarillo were all covered with ice - they looked like crystal trees.
We stopped and had a little breakfast, rested, refilled our coffee mugs and got back on the road. Eventually (with a few added hours to our trip due to the icy roads) we made our way into Denton, TX. We made a quick stop at Denton Regional Medical Center to grab Beneficus Rex's Caduceus Letterbox. This was a nice stamp. By this time it was after five o'clock and we still needed to get to Dallas. With traffic it took us another hour and a half to reach my friend's house in Southeast Dallas. We rested and visited for a while and then the three of us met another friend at La Madelines for dinner. We had a nice enjoyable evening - a great dinner and some wonderful conversation, but we were tired - so we returned to my friend's house and went to sleep.The next morning I made my way to White Rock Lake to check on my Lady of the Lake box. This has to be one of my more popular boxes and the journal was full. I had suspicions of this so I had made a new one and was ready to replace it. Man oh man was I excited to be able to take a full journal home from one of my boxes. I will really treasure this one. So I placed the new journal and returned to Eddie's house. Thomas, Eddie and I then loaded up the car and headed out. We decided to stop in Rusk, TX and do some boxing. I had looked up clues and after some thought and discussion we decided that we wanted to find a series of boxes that were hidden in cemeteries in Rusk, New Summerfield and Jacksonville. The boxes are from a series called A Tribute to Joan. This is a seven box series dedicated to a letterboxer who passed away in October 2006 from Ovarian Cancer. They were placed by jb kokpelli who was letterboxing buds with Joan. The series is a set of stamps of the Seven Dwarfs. What a great series - we had an incredible time visiting all these small, old cemeteries in out of the way places.
Not only were we able to share our love of letterboxing with Joan and jb kokpelli, it gave us an incredible Christmas gift of being able to remember our own loved ones who have passed on. Thanks jb kokopelli and Joan for a most enjoyable day and for adding such a special memory to our lives. I especially loved Dopey and got a chance to say HI to Joan at the same time.After finding these seven boxes we headed for Lafayette. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful and after dropping Eddie at his parents house we arrived at my sister's place. We visited for a short period and then called it a night.
This morning I had a few things planned. I needed to check on and do some maintenance to my four boxes planted in Lafayette. I had gotten some emails that a couple of the boxes may have gone missing so I had recarved the stamps and made new boxes. My two nieces and my nephew wanted to tag along with Thomas and I to check on the boxes - I thought this would be great.
I also had received an Atlas Quest notification of three new boxes placed in New Iberia, LA. I copied the clues and we were off to spend the day letterboxing. Our first stop was Acadian Village - and I quickly checked on the boxes that I knew to be in place. After making sure everything was good on these two boxes we all headed to the area where the third box was suppose to be. Lo and behold the hiding spot was empty (oh no, my first missing box) - I have to say I was pretty disappointed. Well, I had a replacement box with me so we set out to find a new hiding spot. I started at a point from the original clues and looked for a suitable spot for the new box (I didn't want it in the same place as the one that went missing). I spotted a tree in the distance and thought it looked hopeful. So I walked over to this tree and thought this will be great. As I was looking around I found my missing box - just lying on the ground about a foot from the new hiding spot. I was so Happy!!!!! I decided to hide the new box in the new spot (it is the same image) and take the old box home and save it. It was great looking through the journal and seeing all the stamps of the finders. After hiding the new box we were ready to leave and go to our next destination. But Thomas comes towards us and there are four people with him. They are fellow letterboxers (The Weatherlys) and they had looked for my boxes yesterday and they were the placers of the new boxes in New Iberia. What a joy to meet other letterboxers out on the hunt. We talked for a while, exchanged stamps and said our goodbyes - what a great family.We next headed to my Mighty Oak box (which also had been reported to me as missing). After confirming that it was indeed missing (I am very disappointed, as this was a very popular box and I was looking forward to seeing the journal) I found a new hiding spot and placed a new box with the same image. I will update the clues soon on both boxes that were replaced! Now that I had done the maintenance on all of my boxes it was time to find some boxes.
We arrived in New Iberia and started hunting. The Weatherlys have left three great boxes in Louisiana. We thoroughly enjoyed hunting for Fleur de Lis, 4 Peas in a Pod and Sunday. And we had fun visiting places that I had not been to in a long time. We had a great day of letterboxing and were a little tired - so we made our way back to my sister's house.
Tonight my sister cooked Crawfish and Crab Fettucine (man do I love being back home). My dad and nephew joined us for dinner and we had a great visit. It is now pretty late, everyone has either gone home or gone to bed except for me - I really wanted to get this post written tonight. But I think it is time to say goodnight and I will write more later. Oh, and Merry Christmas in case I don't post until after the 25th.
1 comment:
That is so cool that you found one of your missing boxes and met some other letterboxers in the process. And that fettucine sounds terrific...! Merry Christmas!
-Astro D
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