Fresh in from Bardwell Lake. Nice little park -
nothing like a state park, but quiet and secluded,
and apparently the staff there considers it to be a
pretty exclusive resort-type place - you gotta really
want to get in to get in...more on that later!

My family rolled in to Bardwell at 8:30 or so Friday
evening, got set up, sat around and watched a
phenomenally beautiful sunset, and I finally retired
with a good book. LSS retired well after midnight.
I arose bright and early (7 a.m.) and stumbled out of
the tent to put in my contacts, only to find a
mysterious envelope on our picnic table! Hadn't
found my contacts yet, so I had to work to read
"Please
don't open before 3:30!". Well fine. I woke LSS up
to see if he knew how it had gotten there, but he
just groaned and went back to sleep. My son helpfully
suggested maybe it meant 3:30 a.m. and we pondered
that for a moment, until I heard a voice from the
tent say "You DO know what Trustworthy means, don't
you?"

I'm not sure if it was LSS or my conscience, but
since my son heard it too, I'm thinking it was
probably
not my conscience. Blasted scout law.

We spent the day getting ready and relaxing and
finally, went to plant our own box. When we
returned, PuddleSplasher and Viewfinder and Catpawz 1
and 2 were there visiting. I showed them the envelope
and we all pondered our watches (well, I didn't have a
watch so I pondered the meaning of Trustworthy).
Lightning (my son) and LSS (Fearless Fox) took off for
a Walmart run
and Ruby Tuesday and her LSS, Stillwater, showed up
soon after and Lena arrived right about the same
time (go Lena! She didn't want to make the road trip
solo, but she did!). Again, I pondered the first
point of the scout law while they examined the
envelope.

The Cummins Clan and Delivery Girl rolled in shortly
thereafter and everyone watches showed 3:30, but
Lightning wasn't back yet and he had been so patient
with me all day that we had to wait for him.
Fortunately we didn't have to wait too long before
Lightning and FF arrived and we opened the envelope.

The food was really good and everyone brought
something wonderful! It was fun getting to know
everyone and - what? You want to know what was in
the envelope?

The envelope had a very nice letter from our
esteemed Gryzzled Gryphon, letting us know that he was
gracing us with the clues to his very first plant!
Woo Hoo! He also mentioned that if we needed a
further clue, we should open a second sealed envelope
enclosed in the bigger one. I pulled out the clues -
and we discovered that they looked just like his
signature!

For those of you who have seen his stamp, you know
what that means - symbolic code - and we were still
worlds away from finding the box! I was confident
though, and felt certain that the great letterboxing
minds in attendance would be able to figure it out.
And it really was kind of scary to watch these minds
in
motion - we Texas letterboxers are a formidable
force! After all that thinking, we did have to take a
break to eat, but it wasn't long before we were back
to
the clues. Catpawz#1 was going to town and she was
fairly certain she had figured out several words.
Turns out she was right on one particular word, but
for thewrong reason. Huh? you say? We did too!
Just as one of us thought we had it going, Stillwater
would pipe in with his unerring logic and ask a
question or two about "why" or "why not"? And we
would find ourselves redirected yet again. I'm
thinking he would've enjoyed studying under Socrates,
but that's another story. We were all so focused on
solving the clues that I don't think a single person
seriously considered asking for the sealed clue. In
fact, at one point we discussed when and how to open
it, and we all agreed we didn't want extra help. We
also agreed that the first person to solve the clue
and find the box would receive the extra clue to open
to determine the value of it to everyone else. In
retrospect, that decision was a critical error on our
parts.

Finally, at about 6:00 p.m. everyone realized they
had better head out and find the boxes in the park
before it got dark. So off everyone went! Lena had
been down earlier in the week and planted boxes and my
crew and I had gone out and planted one, so there were
four boxes in the part with the distinct possibility
of a fifth - if we could ever figure out GG's clues!
The highly astute Collins Clan and Delivery Girl (that
is one high energy bunch - all smiles and energy)
noticed a cranberry PT Cruiser in the parking lot and
they approached the driver and found that it was
indeed
the esteemed Gryzzled Gryphon! They got a clue from
him about the clues.

As things were settling down and we were beginning
to clean up, a stranger approached our campsite and
asked us "Why aren't you at the party?" I asked him
if he meant the "hunting party"...we invited him into
our campsite and we had a wonderful visit with
Gryzzled
Gryphon. I invited him to log in to the event book
and our personal book, but he had to go and get a
different log book to record the event stamp. While
he was gone, my LSS chastised Lightning and me for
asking so many questions, so we tried to lighten up
a bit when GG returned, but there was just so much to
learn! I finally mentioned that we hadn't opened
the extra clue because we all agreed we wanted to
decipher the clues the hard way, but he told me the
extra clue was no good anymore and invited me to open
it. Sure enough, the clue was "to look for the
cranberry PT Cruiser for a clue". And that, you see,
was the tactical error on our parts! Gryzzled Gryphon
gave me a clue to solving the box clues and oddly
enough, the clue involved a specialty of my LSS while
he was in the Navy, so he set to work figuring it out.
He had a couple of memory errors (it's been 20 years
after all!) which GG corrected for us and we were on
our way to having it figured out! Once he was
satisfied we would have the clue solved before the end
of the night, he bid farewell. On the one hand, it
has
been a fun and interesting element of letterboxing to
have a mystery boxer and I'm sad that the mystery is
now over for me, but on the other hand, the pleasure
of
meeting such an interesting fellow who has made my
letterboxing experience richer far outweighs the
sadness.

We did indeed have the clues figured out by 8:30
p.m. or so, so my LSS suggested we find it in the
morning. Morning? Yeah right! Lightning and I were
heading for it right then, so LSS headed out with us
too. It was a clever location, but unfortunately, we
attracted attention with our flashlights while we were
looking, so between it being a little bit of a rugged
spot and the fact we didn't want to get them more
interested, we held on to the box until the following
morning.

As we were emerging the following morning, who should
be approaching us but Catpawz - both of 'em! They had
figured the clues out and driven all the way back down
to Bardwell to find it. They were thoroughly
disappointed until they learned that we had kept the
box out until morning. They knew exactly where it was
to have been, so we gave it to them to stamp in. And
before we could get it back in place, Ruby Tuesday and
Stillwater drove back up and they had solved the clues
too! I'm really sorry, y'all, that we had held on to
the box...I fully expected to be out so early that no
one could have gotten back before we replaced it.

So, for the summary of the event:
21 attendees
11 new boxes planted (not counting the four planted in
Johnson County since discussion of the event began).

Lucy







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