There is a series of five boxes and a single box on this trail. We started with the series of five and in the middle we looked for the single. The series of five is Funny Business in the Desert by Martini Man. The first part of the hike is easy and pretty level and we made our way to the landmarks for the first box. No problem here, we found the box, stamped in and put it back in place. Then we continued on to the second box. The clues to this box had us work a little harder as the trail climbed in elevation. As we climbed I began worrying that we missed the landmarks which included a room sized field of rocks, a saguaro with three arms and a skeleton saguaro. These things are everywhere in the area and I usually have a hard time sighting thing described like this. But thankfully we found it - but at first I thought that we were not at the right place as there was no skeleton. But I went up to the three arm saguaro and there was the skeleton horizontal behind it. I found that box and stamped in and then we continued climbing to the next box. We reached an intersection (the trail that bisects the loop) and here we looked for Washington in Arizona by Baqash. I followed the clues and thought I was at the right place but there was no box but I noticed that the ground had been dug up around the rock I was searching and then I found a felt pouch. I do believe that was in the box holding the stamp and that is all we found of the box. So we moved on to the third box in the Funny Business series. Following the clues we found the first two landmarks without a problem but then things seemed to not be right. But we kept going. Eventually we reached a landmark that matched the clues and from there we found the box. I stamped in and then replaced the box and read the clues for box four. 
The clues had us looking for an ancient eight arm saguaro guarding an open area on the left and the saguaro also had thumbs pointing up and down. At first I was only looking for the eight arm saguaro. So every saguaro on the left we counted the arms but nothing matched. So we stopped at some point and read further on and the next part of the clue had you take 25 steps from the eight arm saguaro and then see a faint trail to the left. I decided to take 25 steps from every saguaro and look for the trail - nothing. We kept walking. Nothing. I had also glanced at the clue for the last box in the series thinking that I would at least know we had gone too far. We keep walking, checking out all the saguaros on the left. We stop for a break and I notice a building with solar panels - alas, that is part of the clues for the last box. So I read the clues - third back of solar panels (I have no idea if this is the first or third but I keep reading), a lone armless saguaro on the left side of the trail and finally, a yellow building to the right of the building with the solar panels. Yep folks, we were at the last box and completely missed the fourth box. So I followed the last bit of clue for the last box and easily found it - and completely by luck that I noticed the solar panels. After stamping in to the last box I thought about going back and see if I could find the fourth box - but I decided I didn't have the energy to climb back up the trail and search for an eight arm saguaro in a mountain of saguaros. So we returned to the car. I was so dissappointed in myself for not finding that one saguaro but I just didn't have it in me to go back and try again. So we headed out and decided it was time for some lunch. By the way, it took us two and a half hours to hike the loop and look for the boxes and with some back tracking and walking around to get to the boxes we logged four miles.For lunch we wanted something quick, so I consulted my navigation system in the car for restaurants in the area. We found Rubio's - Thomas had soft beef tacos and I had soft fish tacos - delicious. After eating we headed over to BEADholiday. Thomas has been weaving using beads and he wanted to check it out. So we spent about 40 minutes looking around the store. He didn't find anything he wanted so we headed out to do some more letterboxing.
Our next destination was Canada del Oro Riverfront Park. Here we looked for six boxes. We started with Oro Series by Azroadie. The first box we found with any problems except for the fact that we only found the box. It was out in the open and the lid was off and there was nothing else around. We searched the area but found no stamp or logbook. So we continued on. We easily found the second box and I stamped in and then replaced it. After that we continued on to the third and last box. The first par of the clues worked well, we found the "Y" in the trail, went up, over, and down the berm and into the wash, we crossed the soft, white patch of sand and then nothing. The clues no longer made sense. So we tried severl options looking around for the next landmarks but we came up empty handed and called it quits. Next we looked for Virginia by Pink Ladies. This one we found easily and stamped in. From there we decided to look for one that was marked unknown and had an attempt marked on it. We searched for 10th @ Lambert by FamilyTreeShaker. The clues were good and they lead us right to the spot - but no box. We returned to the back to the park and looked for one more box. We easily found 10 Little Pigs by Pink Ladies. We stamped in and replaced the box and decided to leave this park and head to one last area to do a few more boxes.
We made our way to Oro Valley Marketplace.
There are two series here that we wanted to look for in this area. First, we tackled Rainbow Trail by Dixz Doodle. This series has four boxes and we easily found all four boxes. Once we had completed this series we drove over to the other series - Flowers of the Desert 2014 by Desert Flower. There are three boxes in this series and we had no problems finding all of them. After replacing the last box we headed back to the car. On the way we bumped into HowD Girls and moonstone so we chatted for a minute and then made our way to the car. We were a bit hungry so we grabbed some burgers from In-N-Out Burgers and took them back to the hotel with us.It was a great day, beautiful day, hiking in scenic areas with wonderful views. We logged nine miles of hiking today and found 14 boxes. It is now time to rest because starting tomorrow we are in event mode.
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