The Big Easy, Red Stick and a Mini Meet

On Tuesday morning we woke up in the Big Easy (New Orleans - in case you didn't know) and took our time getting ready. We stayed in a hotel on St. Charles Avenue and we wanted to go to the French Quarter for breakfast and some boxing. On the way we had to pass Lee Circle and there was a box hidden there. So we found a parking spot and then crossed to the circle and quickly found the box. It was a nice carving of a Mardi Gras mask. Once the box was back in its hiding spot we made our way to Café du Monde (for me, a visit to New Orleans is not complete without eating here). We had the standard beignets and café au lait and once we were sufficiently covered in powdered sugar we began our search for boxes. Our search took us on a walk behind Café du Monde. We walked from Jackson Square down to Ursuline Street and we found Persistent Rumor - Carcharhinus leucus, Beignets at Café du Monde and Café au Lait at Café du Monde. From here we headed back to Jackson Square to find one of jackbear's Big Easy Blues boxes. This one turned out to be a fantastic carve (so I was disappointed the the other two in the series were missing). The next stop was Lafayette Cemetery to do some maintenance on my Six Feet Above box. This box has seen some trouble. It disappeared from its original hiding spot and then was found by accident by a letterboxer in a completely different area of the cemetery and two of the latches to hold it closed were broken off. Thomas and I found another spot for the box and made sure it was covered well. I jotted down the new clues and will update those on the web. Feeling good about the box we took our time walking around the cemetery and looking at all the old gravestones. After about 30 minutes we left the cemetery and drove to Audubon Park. I had been asked to rehide some boxes that went missing in that park. The boxes had been sent to me before we left New Mexico. It was easy for me to rehide them since I had found them a little over a year ago and new the locations. Once those two boxes were in place we decided to grab some lunch and then head toward Baton Rouge.

We arrived in Baton Rouge and made our way to the Capitol Park area. Remember I love to visit State Capitol Buildings and as a bonus there were seven boxes in the vicinity. We walked around, took some pictures and visited the Capitol. Then we walked over to Huey P. Long to begin our search for boxes. Following the clues for the first box took us to a row of boxwood hedges with an azalea bush behind them. Fifteen minutes of searching left us empty handed. We moved on to the other three boxes in the series and found all three in less than 20 minutes - so this lead us to believe that the first one was missing. Now we are at the Arsenal Building and we quickly find two more boxes, stamp in and rehide. Then we walked about 100 yards to find our last box of the day - another quick and easy find. As we made our way back to the car we searched again for that first box we couldn't find and still came up empty handed. Oh well, you can't say we give up easy.

Back in the car we talked about what we wanted to do for the evening. Today we were meeting some other letterboxers in Jackson, LA and there are boxes in St. Francisville and Jackson so we thought that staying in St. Francisville would be the best thing. So we drove the 25 minutes to St. Francisville to find that the only hotel was completely booked. We looked at each other, laughed and drove the 25 minutes back to Baton Rouge. As we arrived back in Baton Rouge on I110 we used the navigator to find a hotel and we headed to the first one on the list. And if you bet that they didn't have any room available then you won. Back in the car we pulled up hotels and had them sorted from the closest first. We called number one - no rooms . . . we called number two - no rooms . . . we called number three - no rooms. Are you getting the picture? Finally call number 12 yielded us a room and we drove the 7.3 miles to the hotel. The hotel is called Homewood Suites. We had never heard of them and were a little skeptical. But once we arrived in the lobby we felt better - it is a nice hotel and the rooms are suites - living room, small kitchen and a bath and bedroom. So we checked in for two nights - happy we had somewhere to sleep. Well, by this time it was 9:00pm and we stilll hadn't had dinner. So we found a restaurant, ate and returned to the hotel. After showering I started logging things in but I only lasted about 20 minutes - my eyes started closing and I couldn't concentrate - so I went to bed since we had a busy day planned today. That is why this post is for two days and is ending up quite long.

This morning we needed to be in Jackson by 11:00am to meet Blackberry Patch and Mama Cache at Centenary State Historic Site. We got things together, had breakfast at the hotel and then headed back to St. Francisville. I had clues for a box in a cemetery there and we thought we would look for it before the mini meet. We didn't find the box but we thoroughly enjoyed the cemetery, a beautiful old cemetery behind a church. I took lots of pictures and we talked to the grounds keeper. Throughout the entire area we saw downed trees and branches everywhere. We saw houses that had trees that had fallen on them and the damage was still visible. We learned how Hurricane Gustav moved into the area and sat for about seven hours with continuous wind and rain during that time. A few people are still without electricity in the area and the sides of the roads and yards and parks are still littered with downed trees and branches. A very BIG mess! We finally left the cemetery and headed to a place where I wanted to plant a box. Unfortunately it was closed - a victim of Gustav - the park still has downed power lines and it is unsafe to be open to the puble. I didn't have time to think about where to plant my box since we needed to meet the letterboxers in Jackson. We met them at Centenary State Historic Site. Introductions out of the way, we talked about letterboxing and then I headed out to find the one box hidden on the site. I found the landmarks and had to move tree limbs (about ten of them) to be able to check the base of the tree for the box - I found it, stamped in, rehid it and headed back to the picnic area for exchanges. We exchanged signature stamps and personal travelers, had a little picnic lunch and just talked. It was nice to meet Blackberry Patch and her son Big B and Mama Cache and her children (Cottontail, Ampersand Son, BaBadge and Chippy). After three hours I decided I wanted to head out to the Mary Ann Brown Nature Preserve and do some letterboxing before heading back to Baton Rouge. So we said our goodbyes and headed off. The nature preserve was very quiet. We were the only car and we didn't see anyone else the entire time we were out there boxing. There were seven boxes total hidden in the park and we came out of there with five. We missed two because we were looking for them coming from the opposite direction. It was confusing and I think we were both tired. After a half-hearted attempt to figure out where these boxes were we decided to give up. But before we left I found a spot to hide my box - I am hoping this is temporary and that either Mama Cache or Blackberry Patch will be kind enough to move it to the place I originally had in mind once it is open again. The Mary Ann Brown Preserve is incredible - we had a terrific time walking the trails. But the preserve didn't escape the wrath of Gustav - large parts of the trail were hard to manuever on and I think that is why we had some trouble finding those last two boxes. But we really enjoyed our day - visiting with Blackberry Patch and Mama Cache was wonderful and we thoroughly enjoyed our outing at the preserve.

Back in Baton Rouge we grabbed a bite to eat and then returned to the hotel to shower and I wanted to catch up on my blog and logging in finds. Once this post is finished I can say I am officially up to date with all my letterboxing stuff. In the last two days we added 217 miles to our trip.