CardinalMom, the kids, and I enjoyed a very nice afternoon of boxing
at John Bryan State Park today although we failed to rendevous with
Crappiefishergirl. Cellular signal was really weak down in that
canyon. Hopefully we'll catch up with her some other time - we
really hated to miss her.

We started with the Horace Mann box. Very surreal to come upon this
great big bronze statue on a marble base out in the middle of
nowhere - weeds and brush growing up around it like a relic from some
long forgotten civilization. More surreal since someone spray
painted his boots bright red! Another massive (25'?) marble column
nearby with a brass plaque dedicated to a friend of Horace's that
nobody ever heard of adds to the atmosphere. We found the box nearby
with no trouble and discovered that all that marble makes a wonderful
place to stamp in. Very cool stamp but the logbook is about full.
We were so impressed, we left Mr. Mann a hitchhiker. We had the
impression while sitting there that the statue could go weeks or
months without anyone seeing it. Imagine our surprize 30 minutes
later when we drove by the field, to see a wedding party walking back
through the field to have a wedding there! Very surreal place!

We then proceeded to the John Bryan Park box placed by franzsolo.
(Passed a confused looking semi-dressed up couple looking
for a wedding!) Found the box ok and sat on the log across the trail
to stamp in. Logbook pretty full and damp. CardinalMom was
returning the box when she noticed the Underground Railroad
hitchhiker box litteraly under the ground beneath the JBP box. This
thing has traveled around quite a bit. Many familiar names from the
Yahoo talk list stamped in here. We took it to move it along.

Then we got to our main reason for coming here - to test
CardinalMom's Shavian translations of Flyfisher's frog boxes.
Started with Cliffs of Insanity and found frog #1 quickly. Her
translation was spot on! Unfortunately, #2 and #3 could not be
found. We suspect they may have washed away or become buried under a
mud slide. The translated clues looked correct - we just didn't find
the boxes. Box we did find was wet and log nearly full.

Then, after retreating for a wonderful, late lunch at the nearby
Clifton Mill (Ostrich burger and peach pie - mmm mmm!), we tackled
Proto Cave Frogs. Translated clues led us straight to frog #1 and
frog #2 but frog #3 seems to be missing. We suspect it was found and
vandalized - very busy area. Both box #1 and box#2 were very wet.
We couldn't even separate the pages of box #1's log so replaced it
and brought it home to dry and try to salvage. It's a shame - these
boxes all have many great stamps logged in them. Log needs replaced
in box #2 as well - it's nearly full.

We charged on to the Genesis boxes and thanks to CardinalMom's
flawless translations found all three of these. They were all
somewhat wet and the logs are all about full.

As the sun started down, we needed one more box to push our PFX count
to 100. We went after Vines of Time and found it right where
Flyfisher said it would be. Very cool ruin of an old stone barn.
Log is completely full in this one too - we had to squeeze another
strip in there with our stamps on it.

Finally, in the same old barn, we ferreted out franzsolo's Resting
Spot. After all the full logbooks, we were surprized to find we were
first to stamp into this one.

All in all, a very satisfying day. We found 11 counting the
hitchhiker, which pushed our PFX to 101 and we saw some cool things
we'd probably never have seen otherwise and we did it together as a
family on a beautiful late summer day. Doesn't get much better than
that. Just sorry we missed Crappiefishergirl.

Bigguy