Thanks to Doublesaj and Old Blue's connections in the letterboxing I
had the great pleasure of meeting Deanne, the lazy letterboxer and
her partner Dave, the Lettrboxing ham from MA. I guess it helped
that the DD's have family who live in Sonoma too.

DOublesaj arranged for a beautiful day and makes the BEST brownies.
Paul and 3vix joined us and we took off for further adventures as
daylight would allow.

Infortunatley Sierra Sally has not yet made a stamp fo rthe Sonoma
Mission (it is the most northern of the system). Hmmmm that gives me
an idea for a box....anyway 3vix and Old Blue showed me some of their
CA State PArk stamps, great fun! I had no ide those existed. Gotta
start collecting them too, especially since I just bought an annual
State pass.

Anyway, the most entertaining and interesting part was seeing DD's
pix, stamps, and hear stories about their trip to Dartmoor this
September. They got 180 stamps in 3 days and are official members of
the DArtmoor 100 CLub and have patches to prove it.

Well, when I heard you can go into most DArtmoor area pubs, many
inns, museums and even petrol stations and get at least one stamp,
the bells went off in my head.

There is a great pub here, owned by a Brit, who has given me
permission to place a box there. Originally I had planned to hide it
outside with elaborate clues, but now I think it will simply be
Dartmoor style. You walk in the pub, ask the bartender for a
letterbox and he pulls it out from under the counter.

Deanne said they got 20 stamps in one pub. Well to make a long story
short, I thought it would be a fun challenge (Providing the pub owner
goes for it) to have lots of boxes at this pub. IT would be a great
spot for a future gathering down the road.

Theri could be a string of British style pubs with letterboxes across
the state (Murphys Pub in Sonoma, etc. the pub at the Benbow Inn in
GArberville), etc! Excelsior!

I am getting carried away,
Mimulus