A belated thanks to all the official organizers (Chuck & Molly,
Chickabirdie, The Needeeps, Teach & Preach) and numerous other
volunteers who made the Mansfield Monster Mash such a success. We
traveled from Wisconsin to the "hub" of US letterboxing and were not
disappointed. Everyone at the event on Saturday was very friendly
and we enjoyed meeting so many of you and doing exchanges. We ended
up with a total of 91 new exchanges, mostly at the gathering, but a
few out on the trails in the days following the event.

Since our time was limited, we had to choose whether to pursue only
the Monsters, or also look for other boxes on the same trails. We
elected to try to find as many boxes that were on the trails we were
hiking, and really appreciated that the Monster clues included a
reference to other boxes in the area. However this approach did mean
we were juggling 2 or 3 sets of clues at the same time - which did
get somewhat confusing!

The Mansfield area certainly has lots of neat hiking trails tucked
into residential areas. We enjoyed the rocky terrain, streams &
lakes. The area is actually somewhat similar to the glacial hiking
areas in Wisconsin. However we were challenged to actually FIND the
almost hidden trailheads and often went driving back & forth a bit.
(Of course it didn't help that we sometimes came from a different
highway and were looking left when we should have been looking
right!) We always managed to find the spot and the maps provided at
the Gathering proved invaluable.

We enjoyed four days of hiking and boxing and managed to find 79
monster boxes (Thanks to the Monster Makers for a fantastic variety
of stamps!) and 62 other boxes. This included finding our 400th box
(Chuck's "Jumbo" box in his clever Elephant Safari series).

Thanks again for making us feel welcome and for hosting such a great
event!

Wisconsin Hiker & Martini Man
(now again looking for 1 box at a time)