The Weekend

What a fantastic weekend! On Saturday we were up fairly early and Thomas went to the gym for his morning swim. I organized the day and got things ready then headed down to breakfast. I met up with Diane and John (that's Astro D and The Great Wuga Wuga to all you letterboxers) in the breakfast room at the hotel. We talked and ate and made plans to meet up after lunch. Diane and John headed out on their own and once Thomas returned he and I headed out for a day of letterboxing.

Our first stop was more of a challenge than anything but turned out to be a great surprise. We headed to the Triceratops Trail to look for a box that the clues said was buried under a small landslide. Thomas and I both started digging in the small pile of dirt and rock in the area we thought the box should be. After about ten minutes of digging along the wall and getting down to the original ground level we found nothing. I quit digging but Thomas decided to try a little longer. Five more minutes and he found the box. While I stamped in (at this point I was still shocked that he found it) Thomas was finding another spot to hide the box. So once I finished and got the box back together Thomas hid the box in the new spot and figured out clues that we could send the placer. We had all the info we needed so we headed out to look for our second box. This next box was still in place and a much easier find than the first one. We quickly stamped into The Gold Miner and soon we were on our way. We finished the morning by finding The Colorado Railroad Adventure and Coors Beer Microbox. Both were pretty easy finds and nice boxes.

We grabbed a quick lunch and then we headed out to find a mystery box, and that's all I'm going to say on the matter. Well I will say a little more - the stamp and the handmade logbook were great. So at this point I called Astro D and we made plans to meet at Genesee Park - I won't write the details here - mainly because I'm tired and secondly because Astro D wrote them so eloquently in her blog yesterday. Go to Toast Ranch Ramblings and read . . . the rest of the story.

I did find time to log in my finds and write Front Range Hiker to let her know about Triceratops. To my surprise she had gone to the area and hidden a new Triceratops box. And guess what?!?!? It was under the same pile of rocks that Thomas hid the old Triceratops box under. And FRH didn't even see the old one. Isn't that crazy! Oh well, at this point I was tired and went to sleep.

This morning Thomas and I went out early to the Triceratops Trail to get the new box and to put both boxes together so that FRH could go out and find them both and decide if she wanted to move one of them. We returned to the hotel and had a littel breakfast. Thomas then headed out to the gym to swim and The Great Wuga Wuga, Astro D and myself headed out for a little letterboxing before heading to the Golden Treasures Gathering. We hiked the Braille Trail and found Guide Dog and then headed over to Chief Hosa Campground to look for Little Raven, Too. In May Thomas and I were in the area and we found Esmerelda's Buffalo Bill Cody letterbox - the carving was amazing. The carving for Little Raven, Too was just as amazing - WOW! can she carve. It was a great way to start the morning and the event.

By this time it was 10:00 and time for the event so John, Diane and I headed for Genesee Park and met Thomas. The event was fantastic! Things went well and time went fast. We stamped the event stamps and then quickly jumped into exchanges. It was great meeting so many nice people. After about two hours of this John and Diane had to head out. They needed to get back to Santa Fe tonight. Thomas and I headed out to find a couple of boxes planted just for the event. We found Genesee Ski Jump and Farming in Genesee. Unfortunately that is all we had time for. So we returned to the picnic area and said out goodbyes. Our goal was to attend the gathering, meet people and do a little letterboxing before heading out and trying to make our way to Casper, WY - and we did it.

We left Golden and headed north. We stopped for a quick snack in Fort Collins and then headed to Cheyenne. Here we drove to Lions Park and found preboxed's Roots Beneath Your Boots letterbox. We enjoyed the walk around Lions Park - it has a small pond and a lake as well as a small botanical garden. After about an hour in the park we decided we had better hit the road so that we could make our way to Casper before it got too late. Well we are in Casper now and settled into the hotel. Thomas is already asleep and I feel that I am right behind him. It has been a long and extremely fun weekend and I am totally wiped out. I want to get some rest because tomorrow we head to Jackson Hole, WY and Grand Teton National Park.

But before I go I want to thank preboxed, allemeyn and Front Range Hiker for a great event. And I want to thank Astro D and the Great Wuga Wuga for letting us hang out with them this weekend. I will be back soon with more about the trip.