Thanks for the congrats, folks - I'm just glad I've been able to get out
letterboxing at all this summer! Soon after I got back from Texas this spring, I
started having one fibromyalgia flare-up after another, including some of the
worst ones I've ever had! I'd had such a good time driving out to Texas and
back, that I'd hoped to do another road trip this summer out to Montana/Idaho
for CDT trail work and to hit the rest of the states that I hadn't yet gotten to for
letterboxing (although I'd already been to all 50 states years ago for hiking!)
Well, I had to cancel those plans, give up my hopes to seed that long lonely
stretch of eastern North Dakota that has no boxes, and get myself into a
fibromyalgia research study that is keeping me closer to home nowadays, at
least for the time being.

Fortunately, there is still no lack of new boxes that keep popping out in CT
and MA to keep me busy on the days that I feel better or have to go up to MA
for the study tests. Each time I've gone up, I've managed to collect a bunch of
new stamps so I've finally gotten both my RI and MA box counts up to over
500, and CT is fast approaching 3500! Recently a whole batch of new boxes
came out in Maine, too, so I thought I'd shoot for reaching 500 up there as
well. Wouldn't you know, the day I headed up the temperature reached a very
humid 98 degrees and I could barely breathe! Then a heavy rainstorm came
through bringing down wires and trees and trapping me temporarily in the
backcountry, but I still got all the boxes that I went up there for: MAC's "Rest in
Peace" series of cemetery symbols through the ages, Erin's "Worldwide
Maine" series of boxes spread out in owns with international names, and
even a few extra ones like Paplela's "Rail and Trail" along the AT, which
became my F8000! And, since my time there was so limited, I didn't even
have to go Down East of go fishing along the coast to make my "Maine quota",
but stuck to the same general area where I had reached my F5000 almost
exactly one year before! I was delighted to find out that the boxes I'd planted
there on my way down from Tumbledown Mt. (my F5000 July 23, 2004) had
recently been visited, too!

This time on my way home, I decided to pass through NH, and plant a couple
of boxes with stamps carved by RTRW for specific destinations, Pete will be
posting those clues as soon as he gets a chance. Then, since I was so close,
I figured I might as well swing up to Milan for the "Flower Fairy" and was
rewarded by young Blake and his family with a lovely ivy plant that is now
hanging in my kitchen! A few additional pleasant hikes in the Whites left me
just enough time to get down to the Lowell Folk Festival for a fun-filled
weekend of music and dance with my friends in MA. (Pete didn't feel like
driving up, but he did catch part of the program being broadcast live on NPR!)
And now it's home for a "breather" until I feel well enough to plan our next
adventure! Thanks for keeping those boxes coming we'll try to get to as
many as we can!

Cheers,

Wanda from RI
P133 F8020 X938