Greetings, fellow 'boxers --

Time to report in after a brief absence from the Letterboxing discussion
list. In between fall cleanup (all those leaves!) and the increasingly
shorter days, finding enough time to search for those last precious
letterboxes before winter rolls around can become more and more difficult.
Luckily, the weather here in Connecticut recently has been most conducive to
a few rounds of late-season letterboxing.

About two weeks ago, my buddy David (a/k/a Sugarmaker) and I each took a
well-deserved day off from work and trekked down to Killingworth where, after
stamping in at the Blue Bird letterbox and partaking of the excellent muffins
close by, we spent the better part of the day at Chatfield Hollow State Park
looking for - and finding - the series of six letterboxes planted by Bill and
Val of Letterboxing Central. If you go (and I highly recommend it!), one
word of advice: The clues for each box begin at a different location within
the park, and the clues suggest that you drive to each new starting point.
However, the main entrance to the park has been gated for the season and, as
a result, you cannot access the interior park road (there is a parking lot
just outside the main entrance). As such, you should be prepared to do some
additional hiking in order to get from the end of one hike to the beginning
of another.

More recently, ESAK's series of three letterboxes at Timberlin Park in Berlin
provided another of my favorite hikes in a while. The climbs and descents are
exciting, the clues are a little tricky in places (I tripped myself up a
couple of times!), the boxes are well-hidden and the stamps are beautifully
carved. That said, I hope that Elmer will allow me one minor criticism: the
trail blazes that he describes as yellow are lime green! Don't take just my
word for it...the half dozen or so 'boxers who preceded me to the first
letterbox made the same observation in the box's logbook! C'mon, Elmer, time
to 'fess up and revise that clue! :-)

I was not surprised to see that Pete and Wanda were first to find ESAK's
Timberlin Park letterboxes. Which got me to thinking: has anyone else besides
me come to believe that there must be a number of "Pete and Wanda" clones
combing this part of the Letterboxing Realm in search of every new letterbox?
How else to explain the fact that this wily couple is almost always the first
pair of 'boxers to triumphantly find and stamp in to every new letterbox
within a 100-mile radius of their home? Or perhaps there are "Pete and Wanda"
impersonators among us who, having surreptitously counterfitted this duo's
signature stamps, now go about the countryside pretending to be Pete and
Wanda upon first finding a new box. What exactly is going on here?

Lastly, a report on two hitchhikers, one found and one sent on its way. The
"World's Smallest Hitchhiker" turned up this past Saturday and now occupies
an extremely tiny space in my backpack until Thanksgiving. when he (she? it?)
will be heading for colder climes. On the other hand, the "Post-Doc"
Hitchhiker has just found a new home and is resting comfortably for the
moment.

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!

Regards,
Alan from Axtown

"Keep on 'boxin' in the free world." (with apologies to Neil Young)