Immersion Weekend

Well, this past weekend was the time we had picked to help our friends develop this addiction called letterboxing. They came over Friday evening, we went out to eat and then went to find the Terra Salis letterbox. This is the first outdoor letterbox I planted, and they wanted the first letterbox they found to be one I had planted. The very first box I planted was in my mother's history library, but I had a store-bought stamp in that box, so I wanted them to find one of my boxes that had a hand-carved stamp. I had printed out the clues for the box and handed it to them as we entered the park. They said, "We actually have to find it?" to which I told them that I wasn't doing my job as a Lb trainer if I didn't take them out and make it do it themselves. I'm there to help correct whatever mistakes they might make. It took a little work, but they did find the box. We sat up talking quite awhile that evening. We got up (relatively) early the next morning, stopped for the Stone House box and continued on to Shoney's for breakfast. They had a little bit of a challenge on the Stone House box -- it required a compass. They weren't putting as much emphasis on the "follow a bearing of X" as they were the "pile of rocks" clue, so they started for a pile of rocks they could see, which was not exactly on the bearing that was given. I had to redirect them to the brush on that one.

From Shoney's we went on to Virginia's Chapel and planted a box. So, they got to experience the joys of walking around trying to find just the right spot, and then developing the clues to get them there. After this adventure we went on to Cathedral Falls (which is more appropriately a trickle right now) and had fun retrieving that box because half the county seemed to be there and the box was hidden in the open. We developed a "cluster maneuver" (you have to do strange things to keep a drill sergeant interested in this pasttime) in order to retrieve and later replace the box. We went on up the road and stopped off at The Mystery Hole -- a tourist trap, er, I mean -- roadside attraction that simply can't be missed. The scary part is that we were there about two months ago but the tour guide and ticket seller both remembered my son! I'm not sure that is a good thing.... From there we continued on to Hawk's Nest. This box had come up listed as missing, and we had found it once before, so we stopped to make sure it was actually missing -- and it was. We did take time to visit the overlook and do a little shopping in the gift shop. On up the road was another box, and after retrieving that stamp we rewarded ourselves with a stop at Dairy Queen. Yum....

Our trip continued into Fayetteville, under the New River Gorge Bridge, out to Thurmond, then we came home by way of Kincaid to plant the very first box I ever assembled, just hadn't placed yet. This one has a custom made stamp, due to the nature of the box -- which if you ever find it you will understand. We returned home, tired but pleased. They managed to come away with nine stamps and hopefully properly trained in the art of letterboxing :)