Letterboxing Adventure

Our first Letterbox find!

Last month Stephani wanted an idea for fun things to do close to home, what with the price of gas and a rainy forecast for later in the day. In the course of researching directions to Chick Hill she stumbled upon an interesting new hobby, thanks in part to one of the first sites that popped up in response.

Letterboxing:

Letterboxing combines artistic ability with "treasure-hunts" in parks, forests and cities around the world. Look for hidden letterboxes by cracking codes and following clues found on the internet or by word-of-mouth. Items inside the box will vary, but must include a logbook and a rubber stamp - usually a unique, hand-carved creation.

(Purchased rubber stamps are allowed, but the creativity of carving your own is strongly encouraged :)

Letterboxers stamp their discoveries in a personal journal, then use their own rubber stamp, called a signature stamp, by stamping it into the logbook found with the letterbox, perhaps writing a note about the weather or their adventures in finding the letterbox.

The trek up Chick Hill found nothing. Except an exceptional view and a reminder that short little hikes up a hill when we were young can still be fun years later.

Searches at UMO's ornamental garden came up empty for her as well.
As did the two locations Tom and I checked out on the way to Bingham on the 4th. (The owner of the UMO box has promised to check on that one - just a muddy baggie was found on a nearby bench. An email from the last recorded finder of this one assures me it was there 2 weeks ago. We looked all around but perhaps the location was moved to higher ground. She said her very determined daughter found it farther up the hill.)

Today, Steph and I went to Bangor City Forest, walking the trails for miles and miles. (More like a heel-toe death march under the noon sun.)
88 degrees. Humidity at 90%.

Found: nothing.
(See 1st photo of where we think one might have been ;)

The clues were printed out in June when I first helped* Steph research more about this curious adventure of buried treasure, so perhaps they were outdated. This site seems more active and up-to-date.

*Okay: I became obsessed with Steph's new adventure and even made our log books, similar to my fabric postcard method for the covers. (And some help from this really cool kid bookmaking site I found!)

I tried weaving a tear drop/ tree of life "dream catcher" for the first time on Steph's log, per her suggestion and I like how it came out!
It'll be used in an upcoming fabric postcard swap as a tear.

Then we went to the Thomas Hill Standpipe: SUCCESS!

What fun to look through the logbook and see the stamps of those before us. A lot of "Our first find!" comments were noted in the log, ours included now. I left a fabric artist trading card as a gift with a dream catcher woven for the owner, to celebrate our first find.

Can't wait to go out looking for the next one.