>
> There is a term "the ugly american" (this has nothing
> to do with the war or anything like that). It refers
> to the way that many US citizens act when traveling.
> We have a reputation among international travelers as
> people who take little regard for local customs,
> language etc. and expect everything to be as easy for
> them as it is in the states.
Amen. Of course I would not speak to the Dartmoor group not honoring
any stamps NOT found at Dartmoor. I think we have some antecedents
there.
> Difficult clues or not, letterboxes are placed so that
> they can be found. If I go around placing boxes in
> the most remote areas I can find with clues that are
> over cryptic and no one finds them.
Remote and overly cryptic seem to be matters of perspective. Cases in
point, Ryan Carpenter's placements and my latest response. What he
considers easy terrain (height gain of 650 ft) darned near kills me.
Okay, I am horizontally gifted with a bad knee. Now those stamps he
places are well worth getting. A couple of them are carved by Amanda
from Seattle and are gems. The reward is there.
Ryan also put out a box called Walking Tour, where we had to go from
plaque to plaque in downtown San Luis. At each place we had to go
down so many lines, over so many words, and then in so many letters
to decipher the clues. It was truly something for a Hardy Boys or
Nancy Drew fan to decrypt. The stamp was nice but it was really an
accomplishment solving it. Yep, we got mad because some of the first
words were misspelled, leaving us to doubt our methods. Oh well. We
got the box in the end.
What I really and truly hate are vague or misleading clues. And clue
writers, everyone writes them that way at first. You have to go along
with someone or a couple separate folks who have not been to the box
and watch them try to puzzle the clues out. Some folks who write
clues honestly do not know their right from left. Play testing clues
and then refining them might be something we all try occasionally.
Oh, my response to Ryan? The Middle Earth series
(http://webpages.charter.net/astroweaver/letterboxing/middle.html) I
am planting has clues written in Morse code, Tolkein Elven runes,
Ogham, Masonic code, Braille, Futhark, and (maybe) in Tengwar. I do
give help with the Elven runes because they are hard to find in
letter by letter decryption. I have had members of Googled (our
boxing group here in SLO county) not cut in on the plants. I want to
watch them decrypt and find the things. Are my clues too vague? Heck,
I want the clues to be something to work for but not vague.
All of my boxes, however, are easily gotten to. Most are wheelchair
accessible. And "Return of the King" is a tribute to and a spoof of
Ryan. The clues will be planted in his "Walking Tour" box. And while
he has Amanda carving some, I have an equally gifted JugglerMouse
carving some of mine.
And in foreign countries like Kuwait planting boxes? Hmmm. Might be
interesting but being a Vietnam vet, I would worry about landmines in
some of these vacation parts. And in paranoid countries, these look
awfully like dead-drops for spies. Hopefully our new Czar
of "Homeland Security" won't think that!
BTW, who is this guy putting spam up in our files and links areas?
Can we do something to him? Maybe that came out wrong; maybe it
didn't.
Keep on boxing out there,
Sir Balthazar of 100**100D (Googled)
P12 F31 HH4 X9 D16 L(too many to count)