Catch Up/ Wrap Up

Time to come out of hiding, Bella thinks otherwise.

So the plan to keep up with letterboxing and writing didn't quite happen, life did. Now for a quick catch up so I can start fresh with the new adventures:
August brought the start of a new school year, new preps and a rush of other work related issues. I also picked the worst possible time to move. Ahh! On the plus side I received my second teaching credential!
September was hard. It started better than it ended. That is all for now.
October I started to get back into the letterboxing groove. I went to my second event and meet some more wonderful boxers. I got NV Pnk Chabls involved in boxing.

November I turned 30 (gasp!). I came home one day from letterboxing and there was a stray cat on my doorstep.Miss Luna (Yes, she only has one eye.)

She was super hungry, so I gave her some food. It took awhile to name her, but Luna seems to fit. She is now fitting right in with the bunnies and I.
I went to the Case of the Missing Holiday, and had a blast dragging NV Pnk Chabls, Maple and Qbert around. They had a blast, even when I got a little intense. :)Team Techo Cowboys

December finally! So far I have been out letterboxing a few times. It helps that I'm on winter break and don't have to worry about grading or doing any other paperwork. I'm almost all unpacked and settled in, so my hope for 2011 is that I can keep updates current.A awesome gift from my Santa Baby!!

Basil plans on working out in 2011 (kinda like a LTC I made...)

For the love of stamps and LTC's

I am joining the world of LTC's; letterboxer trading cards. I joined my first few trades, and am excited to get started. I had a few people send me samples (very exciting) and I was questioned by my mom (who is considering getting into letterboxing) as to why I want to collect them. In her eyes it's just more stuff for me to pack, and to store.

Then she saw the cards. She has seen my logbook, and has marveled of the wonderful stamps I have found, and that I have carved. I told her that this was a way to see the art of people that I would never get to find their boxes. Now I'm not saying I'll never make it to the east coast or the midwest, but I can't go around finding all the boxes planted by everyone and this gives me a chance to see more.

She then shared an interesting fact about me that I had forgotten. I have always had a love of stamps. As a child, I had collections of stamps and stickers (as a teacher I still love stickers!) and would trade with other people to get different ones that I didn't had. When I was going through the childhood boxes that were dumped at my house, I found some of those old stamps. Three of which were old My Little Pony stamps, which is fun because I had just joined the My Little Pony exchange. I'll share my cards once the date has passed to send them out, but I just had to add one of the 80's stamps to the card somewhere. :)

On a bird walk

Maple and I went on a walk today at the Bay Trail in American Canyon. The parking lot is on the corner of Wetlands Road and Eucalyptus Drive. It is a nice walk, 1.4 miles out and on a flat path. It was a bit windy, but we hoped that the birds would still be out.

We followed the trail and to out right we saw a water area with a few birds. Maple's attention was drawn to the paved section of the road. "Did you hear that?" She asked me. Of course I didn't hear her, I was busy counting the sections. I got up to nine until I ran into her. "See that pile of rocks between the 3rd and 4th post to the left of the path?" I nodded "I think there is something under there.

We continued on our walk and passed the trail marker that said .8 miles from trail head, .6 to River view. The water was to our left now, and a lovely ditch to our right. "Stilts!" Maple exclaimed. She really likes how they do a thing with their head. Just past the water there was post.I had to stop and fix my shoe, and something caught Maple's eye. "I think it might be a baby stilt!" she whispered. Of course we had to get a closer look, and there was something there!
Continuing on there was a cute jackrabbit on the path leading us to the Dr. Seuss trees.

They had giant prehistoric Aloe plants by them. In the plant right next to the trail we thought we heard some quacking. I checked it out and we found a literate bird! I'm guessing it's literate, it's the only one we found with a book.As we were nearing the glass beach we started talking about the trip that we took earlier in the summer to Alaska. We were lucky to see lots of different birds there that we had never seen before. We had just reached the end of the trail when I heard something. I looked out over this view:I swore I heard something in the clump of rocks pictured. I got closer, and under rocks and a piece of wood we found one of the birds we saw in Alaska! What a long way from home he was!We turned around and headed back to the car. It had been a wonderful bird walk.

Here we go again

It's normal for me to get the moving bug every couple of years, normally I just move furniture around and call it good. This summer though we are really moving. By we I mean me and my fluffy roommates that don't help pack, move, or pay rent.

I have boxes all over the house, which isn't anything new. I keep a box here or there for the rabbits to nibble or hide in. Of course those boxes are old news and get ignored. But the new boxes are ripe for chewing according to Basil.

So now he's locked up way more then he wants to be and not too happy about it.

Let me out!!!!

Who said living/moving with animals was easy?

We'll finish you off!

Q and I went to our first event the other day. I had a blast! Q is more quiet, so he had fun, but it wasn't really his cup of tea. I'm glad he humored me and went anyways though! :)

I brought my camera, but left it in the bag the whole time. There was many boxers to meet, and stamps to exchange. I saw my first in plain sight box, and I love the idea. I might have to make one for the next event I go to.

What made this event so cool was getting to meet other bay area boxers as well as the folks from OR and WA who were finishing the Amazing Race. It was cool to see people's signature stamps and to put faces with stamps and names. :) There are some amazing carvers out there.

Q is more into the hunt, so I'm going to try to get him into the carving part of things. I think being an artist helps you appreciate the art so much more.

For me going to this event opened up a whole new world of letterboxing. It has always been about getting my friends into the hobby, and now I've met people because of the hobby. I made a personal traveler or two. I'm on the message boards now, and I've even started getting into LTC's. It might just be because of summer time, but I really like doing all of this. I know for sure I'm going to the next event in the bay area and I will be a part of the Amazing Race next summer. :)

Alaska!

I just got back from a wonderful trip! Danielle (Maple) and I went on an Alaskan cruise, and we even attempted to do a little letterboxing.

Well, not here... but I had to add the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau. :)

In Juneau we ended up with extra time, so we took a nice little walk to Cope Park to find the one box listed. It ended up missing, but I'm glad we took the walk, we ended up passing the governor's mansion and the park had Gold creek going through it, very cool!
We also visited Hubbard Glacier and Sitka (which was our favorite port). The wildlife was amazing to see: bald eagles, sea otters, puffins, and giant slugs.

In Ketchikan we attempted to letter box again. I was reminded who this is such a cool thing to do, we had no plans other to visit these two boxes and we ended up seeing some interesting places.


This is the old red light district that has been changed into shops. Married Mans Trail is behind us. Hmm, wonder how it got that name...

Both boxes were missing, but once again we got to see parts of the town that we may or may not have gone to otherwise. Overall, it was a wonderful trip. I will have to go back and see the rest of the state at some point.

Back to my second home....

We returned to Seattle, and planned to spend a few days there before the road trip back to California. Luckily I still have friends who live there, (SeattleBoot!) so we visited, and were more successful in the letterbox hunt. SB and I planted one in my favorite park, and visited the old neighborhood. I was super excited to get Fremont Troll, which was less then a block away from my old place. I love going up to Seattle, spending time with my best friend and it was a wonderful start to summer vacation.

Taking a first timer

I had talked about letterboxing so much, that when Ben came to visit we had to plan a day boxing in the area. I had made him a signature stamp, he signed up for AQ as SeattleBoot and we were ready to go.

His first find! I think he's hooked. :)

After hitting a few in town we ended up heading for the coast. We visited places that we had both gone to before, but this time with a new appreciation, and with a new purpose. We stumbled upon some wonderful artwork in the Bodega Bay area. We also were the first finders of a stamp, a first for both of us. :)

A great place for a photo shoot

We also saw baby bunnies! They looked like domestics and not the typical wild rabbits that are in the area. They were so cute, they would flop on the trail, and as we got closer they would run ahead, and flop again. If I didn't have two buns at home, I would have been tempted to try and cuddle them then take them home with me.

As always, it was great to spend the day with SB. He will be in town for a few days longer, but I am headed up to his place in Seattle to take off for a cruise before he leaves CA. I'll see him when I get back (since I'm spending a few days at his house), making this the most we have seen each other in a month since I left Seattle and headed back to CA four years ago.

Hitting San Rafael

My second letter boxing experience was today. It was a spur of the moment decision, I headed over the Marin to meet up with Qbert to go hunting in San Rafael.

We started with the idea that we would hunt down six or seven. We have high expectations and a few were indoors, so why not? Q knows San Rafael better then I do, so he found a place to park by several and we decided to explore the area by foot. We went to our first indoor box, which was supervised by librarians. The one that Q asked has no idea what he was talking about, but luckily the lady nearby knew and got it for us.

The next few we found no problem, and I got a few cool pictures in the meanwhile...We also stumbled upon our first problem. We followed rather fun puzzle clues... only to find no box. We searched the surrounding area for a good 15 minutes with no luck. We came to the conclusion that one of the residents of the park must have taken it, because we saw several belongings nearby.

We saved the best for last, Q was super excited about going to San Quentin Point. I was a little nervous, it is right by a major prison after all. But I had never even thought about getting off at the exit before, so I was a little excited as well. Wow, what a view! I can see why people are so willing to live next to the prison.

Unfortunately, the tree the box was in was chopped and piled nicely on the point. This is one that we have to go to again if it is ever replanted

Final count of the day:
5 found
3 attemped

Getting Started

Took the leap into the world of letterboxing today. Armed with clues for several boxes around town, stamps and stamp pads I ventured out with Qbert and Elefant Gal to see what we could find. Once we found the perfect books to use as our log books (Moleskine notebooks, love them!) we were ready to hunt.
The first one was easy for us to find. It was a park that we had been to before and since we were the only ones there we found and stamped in with no problem. We did find our first flaw- we need more than one pen or pencil for the three of us.

Our first found box!

The rest of the day we stumbled upon the typical problems. At one location there was a major landmark that was no longer there, luckily being locals we knew where it was, and found the box anyways. At another there was people who decided to settle in for a picnic, so we started a photo shot that sent one member of our party into a tree to pose and retrieve the box. It worked out pretty well, and I have some interesting photos as a result.
One of the not so interesting ones.

In total we found six stamps and one hitchhiker (which we didn't know to take with us, oh well, next time!). It was a great first adventure, and I'm ready to go out again!