Austin Letterboxing

Today we spent the day letterboxing in Austin. Astro D, her friend (Vickie - who is going by Bell Motel for letterboxing) and myself spent a gorgeous day letterboxing all over the city. We visited Red Bud Isle, Zilker Park, Congress Street Bridge, Oakwood Cemetery, the UT Campus and the Arboretum Center. The majority of the day was sunny and warm, however we did encounter a light rain at the end of the day for a short time. But it did nothing to dampen our spirits. Today was a very good day.

We took it easy this morning by sleeping in, having a leisurely breakfast and just relaxing. We started our day letterboxing at Great Hills Park near Bell Motel's home. This was a quick walk in a nice little neighborhood park and started the day off nicely. From here we headed to Arboretum Center. There were two boxes we were looking for, unfortunately we couldn't find one and I fear it is probably missing. Next stop - Red Bud Isle. We walked and quickly found Boots Tex's Two for the Price of One letterbox. Thoroughly enjoyable and of course a great carving. We spent the next hour searching for two other letterboxes here but with both we came up empty handed. Not sure where we went wrong. Oh, well - time to move on. Zilker Park held six boxes so we stopped at the Austin Nature and Science Center within the park. We found three boxes at this stop - City Streets: Quilt Block Series, Mr. Secretary: Texas Governors Series and U.S.A. Flag 2 Letterbox. All were nice stamps and boxes. Now we headed to another part of the park. It didn't take us long to find and stamp in to Endangered Species of Texas - Barton Springs Salamander. So next we headed to Congress Street to find Mexican Bat. I think it took us longer to park than it did to locate the box and log in. I enjoyed this stamp even thought there weren't any bats. I also enjoyed the sculpture "Night Wing" by Dale Whistler. After rehiding the box and taking some pictures of the sculpture we left the area and made our way to Oakwood Cemetery. Here we found The Leaning Tower of Pease - Texas Governors Series and Oakwood Cemetery boxes. At this point it is starting to get dark but we wanted to make one last stop. We found parking on the University of Texas campus and went in search of two boxes by Lore. It didn't take us long to find both of them - Hook 'Em and San Jacinto Hall. Once both boxes had been logged into and rehidden we headed for home.

I for one was hungry at this point. Luckily for us Vickie's husband Tom was planning and shopping for dinner. While Tom cooked I decided to take a shower and then start logging in my letterbox finds for the day. I only got a couple of boxes logged in before dinner was ready, so I put my things away and we enjoyed some grilled shrimp and veggies.

All in all I would say this is one of the most enjoyable letterboxing days. The weather was wonderful, we found some great boxes, saw some nice areas of Austin (areas I had never seen before) and enjoyed the company of nice people. Who could ask for more.

Tomorrow we attend the Texas Treasures event in Bastrop - it should be another good day of letterboxing.