Serendipity smiled! Rosie just got a chance to leapfrog her way to the lovely Heartland
of America. She's been lingering on the West Coast for way too long and much
appreciates this leg up in the race. Last Tuesday, while talking to one of my
customers in Iowa, I learned that the Iowa State Fair was in full swing. Not only is this
a state that has more hogs than humans, a perfect situation for a Funhog, but the
Saturday night entertainment at the fair offered a once in a lifetime opportunity: a
concert that included Fabian! How could I miss that???

I'd been saving up frequent flyer miles for a trip to Dartmoor but, hey, this was
irresistible! I called the airline, found out that all the freebie seats to Des Moines were
gone (go figure!) but I could get to Omaha. It's not a bad drive from there to Des
Moines. Plus, I'd recently received reports that my Mandan Heron letterbox in Omaha
might be missing. I figured this was my opportunity to give it a check. After a lovely
lunch with the mysterious vegan, pigeon raising, Esperanto speaking letterboxer,
Scott Redd, I headed down to the river to check on the box. I'm pleased to say that
the box is just fine and I left Rosie enjoying riverview real estate.

Now, on to the big excitement at the State Fair... this show featured Lou Christie,
Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon, Lesley Gore, Tommy Roe, the Marvelettes, Danny and
the Juniors plus my all-time fave, Fabian. Unbelieveably, I dropped my name as
"Funhog from TIME magazine" and they let me backstage! I got to meet all the oldies
but goodies on the bill AND, get this, tell them about letterboxing. Fabian was
particlularly interested when I told him about the Musicians Series by Brett Costley
and the Beatles boxes by Jay Drew and TeamGreenDragon. Everyone asked why there
were no boxes featuring any of them? OK letterboxers, time for some Golden Oldies
Letterboxes... Funhog