Team Bigguy took advantage of a glorious Saturday afternoon to venture
up to Vinton county and chase down Mr. Bloodhounds 4 recently placed
boxes there.

We pulled in to the parking area at Hope Furnace to find approximately
every Harley Davidson east of the Mississippi trying to check through
a check point in some sort of poker run. Black leather clad burly
bikers everywhere. Fortunately, the box was artfully placed well
enough that we were able to get it and stamp in in plain sight almost
completely unnoticed! One down!

The on to Celtic Knot after passing the road by 5 or 10 miles and
driving the wrong road through and back. Finally found the right road
and then the box with no trouble. I think only Dragon from Wisconsin
had been there before us.

Then on to Haunted Moonville. Really popular place on this day -
almost a parade of people up and down that hill! Kind of surreal to
have all that activity out in the middle of nowhere where you'd think
there would only be a visitor or two in a years time. We had to wait
for people to leave so we could park! Turned out to be mostly
geocachers. We found the cache too and I must say it had the best
stuff in it of any cache I'd seen. Believe the clue when it says you
may want to have a 4x4 to drive up to the top. The road is not really
that bad but it has some bottomless mud holes in it that are
impossible to drive around. You need lots of ground clearance. It's
not that far to walk anyway. We managed to snare the letterbox
between geocachers and found that it has significantly fewer visitors
than the cache. All in all a great box in a cool place.

Finally, back down the road to the famous Moonville Tunnel. A longer
walk than we anticipated but not a bad hike really. Most of it is
down the old railroad bed so is basicly flat. Another really surreal
experience. The day is perfect - 75 degrees, impossibly blue sky, and
big puffy white clouds - and we're walking down what appears to be an
endless corridor of green with the trees arching over our heads and
joining in a continuous although perforated cover. The view is the
same in either direction - a beeline straight single width path of
light gray stone down the middle of this green corridor. There is no
sight or sound of human activity at all. We're walking into the
setting sun and it's almost like peoples description of a near-death
experience - walking toward the light. Then suddenly, in the middle
of this total immersion nature experience, appears this big, beautiful
tunnel. About 250 feet long and beautifully laid up of bricks, the
Moonville Tunnel seems completely out of place here. It's difficult
to imagine huge fire-breathing steam engines roaring along through
this tranquil wilderness pulling clattering strings of coal cars.
It's a special place and I hope the vandals don't completely ruin it.
They've already managed to break off a few of the brick letters
spelling out Moonville over the entrances and there's no shortage of
graffiti. Obviously the kids know where it is.

All in all, a great afternoon. Beautiful, special places and great
stamps - the best that letterboxing can be. Thanks Mr. Bloodhound!
Hope you all are having fun too!

Bigguy