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...)

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. :)

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!