> In the back of my head I was thinking
> it would be really sad if it was missing and we were
> searching for something that wasn't even there!

You're going to be very disappointed with that sort of perspective.
Boxes do go missing on a regular basis, and you'll come across your
fair share of them. Enjoy the journey and you'll have fun regardless
of whether the box is there. If you get sad about a box that is
missing or is in anything but pristine shape, you're just setting
yourself up for a world of disappointment.

-- Ryan

ALot are in the forest preserves, but there are a quite a few planted by Funguswoman, that are planted around Brookfield, and not in the woods. They are near a train stop in Brookfield, near Kiwanis Park, outside Brookfield Zoo, and a few others I can't think of off hand. Also, there is one that it is good to go during the day, it is a mystery box, but it leads you to a very nice ice cream parlor. Another one in the Brookfield/La Grange area is in a stationary store. Some of them in the woods, you really don't have to travel too far into them to get the box. The 1st one we did was part of the Holy Grail series, off of 95th Street I believe, and you didn't go that far in at all. There's a few that are in cemeteries, which I wasn't sure about at 1st, but seeing the different stones, and knowing that there is something interesting about the people there made it more memorable. We usually pick an area, county, and print a bunch of them out and go out looking. There's a
few times we can't find the box, and we just email the person, and give them a description of the area we were at. They usually tell you if you're on the right track or not. There is also postal letterboxing, that the kids and I do during the winter. You get a stamp in the mail, or you can make one for a topic they suggest on there. If you like the Ren Fair that is on the Wisconsin/Illinois border, they have letterboxing there through the fair. There is like 13 boxes to find around the fair, plus getting personal traveller stamps from the people who work there. It is usually listed on the Ren Fair website under performing arts, and the clues for them is usually listed on the letterboxing.org site or under Dragon's personal LB website. It is alot of fun, and I really hope the one incident doesn't ruin the whole thing for you. Also, there is quite a few in Riverside are as well that is not in a forest preserve. Atlasquest.com has clues as well. and if you join the
Yahoo group LbGLK (the Great Lakes letterboxing group) you will be able to get alot of Funguswoman's clues there without having to email her for them. WIth some boxes coming up missing or whatever, usually if the clues are hard, or you have to work for the answer deters the new letterboxers from just seeking a box out and not having repsect for the people who put the effort into them, or those who just want to try it out just to see how it is. We did the easy ones at first to get our feet wet, and to see if this is what we wanted to do. And then, we got hooked, and wanted to do more! (My mom got so adicted, it got to where we had to do like 10 at least in 1 day over the weekend!) It is fun, and there are ALOT of great people out there. We went to our 1st gathering in February, and we had a great time!! You finally get to put faces to trailnames, and it's like having a family/friend get together!! I hope this helps you out a bit. And please feel free to email me
anytime! =) Liek I said, I go out with my kids, all 6 of them, the 2 yr old and the 5 month old still have no clue exactly what's going on, but the older 4 LOVE to take turns in finding them and hiding them back. We're already into a 2nd book for everyone, and we started in July of last year.


Brat Pack IL
Big Brat
Jean


K D wrote:
Jean -

Wow, thank you so much! And you are so close by as I
am in Evergreen Park.

I'm glad to hear that your parents found the box I was
searching for. In the back of my head I was thinking
it would be really sad if it was missing and we were
searching for something that wasn't even there!

I just don't know if I have it in me to return to that
location again or even the one in Oak Forest. But
maybe sometime over the summer you can let me know of
one that might not be too complicated and not in a
forest preserve.

Thank you again! So nice to meet wonderful people
here!

K.

--- Jean Sheedy wrote:

> K, I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience. I
> go letterboxing with my mom and dad, with NOW 6 kids
> in tow. They all love letterboxing. This morning,
> my momand dad, and 4 out of the 6 brats (form our
> Trail name) , and went to the one you had the bad
> experience at in Orland. I didn't know they went to
> the same one until they called me and told me they
> found the box, and where it was. My family found
> the box you were searching for, but it is one of
> them that you need a compass for. They went to the
> wrong tree at first, but then pulled out the compass
> and found it. And it never fails, we're always
> right begind Atom118 and Coffee Beans in finding the
> boxes. LOL Luckily, (knock on wood) we haven't had
> any real bad luck in letterboxing. Not finding one
> or two, is normal, especially in the beginning. My
> parents actually got caught in the bad thunderstorm
> last year on the REAL long LB hike, and when they
> started to head back for the car, large tree
> branches were
> fallen on the path, and they were SOAKED by the
> time they got to the car! But, usually, if they go
> out without me, thye call me and let me know where
> they are at, and call back to let me know if they
> found the box or not. My parents do that whether
> they have my kids or not with them. We were lucky
> enough to run into a couple letterboxers on our 1st
> try out, and they were wonderful. (the Wormy
> Wanderers) If you ever wanna try again, we live in
> Alsip, send me a line, and if we're going out for
> the day, we would be happy to show you it can be
> fun. (if you don't mind a trail of 6 kids with!)
> =) The next few weeks, we got a B-day (Swee' Pea
> will be 2yrs) and also a wedding the following week,
> so in June, after the 1st week, we'll be starting to
> hit the trails at least one day onn the weekend.
> There are some wonderful letterboxes out there, and
> some that lead to a great ice cream shop, or a place
> to eat or shop! We planted our 1st one last year,
> in Wisconsin, and so
> far everyone likes it! We plan on planting some
> more this year as well. And unfortunately, another
> one in Wisconsin..Sorry, Illinois, we will be
> planting some here as well!!! (The next one in
> Wisconsin is a special one....it's for my cousins)
> =) Well, I hope you will give it a try again!
> Usually best time to go is early on the weekends,
> about 8am and well go LBing until 4pm. We pack a
> lunch and eat at one of the parks before heading to
> the next stop, and we clean our hands well
> afterwards to get rid of any food scent so we don't
> attract animals to the box. Well take care, and
> hope to see you out on the trails.
>
> Brat Pack IL
> Big Brat
>
> xxxxxxxx wrote:
> I guess I didn't take it personally
> because I didn't take it as an
> indictment of all letterboxers.
>
> If someone nasty were going to post clues to a
> non-existent box in order to
> hurt someone, I think it's more likely that, rather
> than being a
> letterboxer, the EvilNonPlacer found out about
> letterboxing somehow and
> decided to use it for their own gain and wouldn't
> know what a logbook
> actually looked like if their life depended on it.
>
> Not to say there CAN'T be a Letterboxer-Gone-Bad. We
> have
> Letterboxers-Gone-Wild, we have
> Letterboxers-Gone-Obsessed, we have
>
Letterboxers-Gone-And-Gotten-Lost-in-the-Woods-Because-They-Won't-Give-Up-Th
> eir-Search-When-the-Sun-Goes-Down, we
> have..............
>
> So why not a Letterboxer-Gone-Baaaaaaaaaaaaad? But
> that's not an indictment
> of all letterboxers any more than a one Drunken
> Idiot Deerhunter who
> accidentally shoots another Drunken Idiot Deerhunter
> out in the woods should
> be an indictment of all deerhunters. Tho I know
> there are some
> deerhunter-haters who might feel such an indictment
> might be warranted. :-)
>
> ~~ Mosey ~~
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of
> rscarpen
> Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2007 10:50 AM
> To: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [LbNA] Re: BEWARE - northern Illinois
>
> Sorry, but it felt like an indictment of
> letterboxers everywhere, and
> being a letterboxer myself, I probably took it a bit
> too personally.
> Not all letterboxers are going to be thoughtful,
> wonderful people, but
> something as ludicrous as thinking someone
> deliberately planting a
> box just to break into someone's car.... At least if
> you (or your
> husband, really) wants to accuse letterboxers of
> something, throw out
> mud that will stick. =)
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Building a website is a piece of cake.
> Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get
> online.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>

Visit me at:
http://zekesbest.blogspot.com/
Check for updates!






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When a box seems missing, or we can't find it, we do get a little disappointed, but then we say, well we got another one to go to, we'll find it!!! It's almost like looking for treasure, seeing if you can find it, and just admire it, and put it back for the next finder. If not there, well there's another one around the corner!!

Brat Pack IL
Big Brat


rscarpen wrote:
> In the back of my head I was thinking
> it would be really sad if it was missing and we were
> searching for something that wasn't even there!

You're going to be very disappointed with that sort of perspective.
Boxes do go missing on a regular basis, and you'll come across your
fair share of them. Enjoy the journey and you'll have fun regardless
of whether the box is there. If you get sad about a box that is
missing or is in anything but pristine shape, you're just setting
yourself up for a world of disappointment.

-- Ryan






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About a year ago, we began to do two things: 1. set ourselves a time limit
and 2. make sure that ahead of time we found at least one or two other
interesting things in the area to do.

It can be said that "it's all about the hike", meaning that finding the box
is a great end result but one should enjoy the trip whether the box is found
or not. But I'm obstinate and I'm obsessive to the point where I can quite
easily spend up to 3 hours searching for a box that might not even be there.
Felt totally exhausted at the end of that, and frankly, the search became no
fun after a certain point.

We realized one day that we were both rather fond of the phrase "Are we
having fun yet?" when we began to get frustrated. One or the other of us
would say it without even thinking. Well, that became our "Godwin." Game's
over. As soon as that phrase is uttered, we look at each other, burst out
laughing, and without an intelligible word, we pack it up and pack it in.

That always brings us to point # 2. Because we want to get *some*thing out
of the day. If the hike was great and we saw some beautiful scenery, that's
great. But generally, around here, ya seen one woods, ya seen 'em all. And
most come with all the same type of trash and litter. In my own personal
opinion, the only hikes we've had where we haven't found the box(es) but
came away absolutely having loved the hike was at Mattheissen State Park
down by Utica, IL. In fact, we were even loving the hike so much down there
one day, that there was one box we totally *forgot* to even look for.

So we *always* have something else to pick out to go see as a "booby prize"
if we don't find the box. We were looking for a box once not all that far
from Navy Pier in Chicago that we didn't find (I think it might have been
one of Matt the Rat's). Our "booby prize" that day was a ride on that huge
ferris wheel at Navy Pier. That was cool. My nephew enjoyed not finding
the box that day just as much as if we'd found the box.

In other words, we always carry thru with a Plan B. So that even if it's
*not* all about the hike with us, it *can* be all about something other than
the letterbox. Because we know ourselves, and try as we might, 99% of the
time, in northern IL, it's not going to be all about the hike for us because
the hike just ain't all that pretty or all that stupendous. So sometimes
it's all about the Prize and sometimes it's all about the Booby Prize.

~~ Mosey ~~

ROTF You said Booby!!!! Sorry I'm half asleep, and thought it was funny! =)

Brat Pack IL
Big Brat

xxxxxxxx wrote:
About a year ago, we began to do two things: 1. set ourselves a time limit
and 2. make sure that ahead of time we found at least one or two other
interesting things in the area to do.

It can be said that "it's all about the hike", meaning that finding the box
is a great end result but one should enjoy the trip whether the box is found
or not. But I'm obstinate and I'm obsessive to the point where I can quite
easily spend up to 3 hours searching for a box that might not even be there.
Felt totally exhausted at the end of that, and frankly, the search became no
fun after a certain point.

We realized one day that we were both rather fond of the phrase "Are we
having fun yet?" when we began to get frustrated. One or the other of us
would say it without even thinking. Well, that became our "Godwin." Game's
over. As soon as that phrase is uttered, we look at each other, burst out
laughing, and without an intelligible word, we pack it up and pack it in.

That always brings us to point # 2. Because we want to get *some*thing out
of the day. If the hike was great and we saw some beautiful scenery, that's
great. But generally, around here, ya seen one woods, ya seen 'em all. And
most come with all the same type of trash and litter. In my own personal
opinion, the only hikes we've had where we haven't found the box(es) but
came away absolutely having loved the hike was at Mattheissen State Park
down by Utica, IL. In fact, we were even loving the hike so much down there
one day, that there was one box we totally *forgot* to even look for.

So we *always* have something else to pick out to go see as a "booby prize"
if we don't find the box. We were looking for a box once not all that far
from Navy Pier in Chicago that we didn't find (I think it might have been
one of Matt the Rat's). Our "booby prize" that day was a ride on that huge
ferris wheel at Navy Pier. That was cool. My nephew enjoyed not finding
the box that day just as much as if we'd found the box.

In other words, we always carry thru with a Plan B. So that even if it's
*not* all about the hike with us, it *can* be all about something other than
the letterbox. Because we know ourselves, and try as we might, 99% of the
time, in northern IL, it's not going to be all about the hike for us because
the hike just ain't all that pretty or all that stupendous. So sometimes
it's all about the Prize and sometimes it's all about the Booby Prize.

~~ Mosey ~~






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