My daughter, Zairabear, and I headed out to find our very first
traditional letterboxes. We had both done a couple of virtual
letterboxes (both together and alone) before making this leap into
"real" letterboxing. As we were preparing our "hunting gear" it
suddenly dawned on us that we should exchange stamps with each other.
So when we hit the trail on our first official day of letterboxing we
each already a single X count :-)

Our first target was Saxon's Nemesis Mini Letterbox placed by Padfoot
Stamper. The trail was beautiful and the box was right where the
clues said it would be. The only problem we had finding this box was
that I thought I knew where the starting point was, but ended up
driving back and forth for about 30 minutes before finding the correct
intersection. It was a huge rush finding our first box! Both Zaira
and I were elated as we read through Saxon's Tale, examined every
aspect of the box, pored over the logsheet, and failed miserably at
being inconcspicuous. We were just too excited!

The second hunt of the day wasn't quite as rewarding. We headed after
Walk Like A Duck by workerofwood. These clues were very intriguing
(park on the river? ON the river?!?) but we managed to find the right
starting point. We then followed along the clues, calibrating our
paces, etc and came to the mid-point where we were supposed to find
further instructions. The clue stated there would be a "little green
box". Well, we searched and searched around the area, but could find
no hint of a "little green box". The clues did go on to give
suggested activities once the finish point was discovered, so we were
able to eventually puzzle out where we needed to be. However, once we
found the (presumed) hiding spot we discovered that there was a hive
of bees (or wasps, or other flying/stinging bugs) in the hole with
dozens of them flying in and out in a pretty constant stream. Neither
of us were brave enough to search for the box, so this one gets
chalked up as an attempt.

We still had one more box to go. Zairabear was really excited about
doing Princess Lea's Nancy Drew Notebooks series for two reasons: 1)
she's enamored of PrincessLea (first for her trailname and then
because of her personal stamp (seen at Saxon's)), and 2) she read all
of the Nancy Drew Notebooks. Besides, this one was on the way home
and right across the street from an ice cream parlor :-) Once again
we found the spot fairly easily, but this time we had a very tough
time locating the box itself. We spent maybe half an hour digging and
poking before I gave up. We even explored a nearby similar location
that we (correctly) thought was the wrong space. About fifteen
minutes after I gave up, Zaira gave up as well, but asked that I take
one more look. I finally found the cement "marker" buried under about
8 inches of dirt and leaves. The box was under the marker as
promised. It turns out that the last person to find the box (I forgot
to note their trailname) had found it one year to the day before!
They had noted that it was an "easy" find. Guess that shows what a
year in even urban wilderness can do to a hiding spot. When I
replaced the box it was still well hidden, but should be a much easier
find for anyone actually looking for it.

We're both definetly hooked. While this coming weekend is already
booked solid with activities planned months ago, we're going to try to
sneak in a couple of boxes as well.

Anyway, that's the Team Aahz report for Day One. We look forward to
filing many, many more!



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