teapo-@teapot.mv.com wrote:
original article:http://www.egroups.com/group/letterbox-usa/?start=2471
> Hey, don't hold out on those who couldn't go! We want to know details
> of this first convention! How'd it go? Did you have fun?? What?
>
> Nisa :)


Maybe we all needed a day to recover, or to gently ease back into the
real world, or to get back down to PA as was my case...

What a great rejuvenating weekend! Such a pleasure to finally meet (as
Erik said) some long-time friends. Tom, thanks again for having so
graciously given of yourself to make this happen.

I do haven extremely cluttered desk staring at me with many nearing
deadlines, so I will keep note short. More will follow.

Erik & Susan, thanks for hiding J. Taylor #1 (&*^##*) and later J.
Taylor #2 in its more permanent resting place. What a nice spot you've
found! Now you'll need to head back up there to find the "1st E.C.
LBNA Gathering Memorial Box". I'll post clues within the week (I'll
post Pocomoke too, Randy & Kim)

More to come...

Lone Wolf
West Chester, PA
P6F29X9

X???? One of the things I enjoy most about this hobby is the ability
to both give (P) and take (F) as we place and find boxes. Now I've
found a third dimension: meeting fellow letterboxers and exchanging (X)
personal stamps, among other things.

John DeWolf wrote:

>One of the things I enjoy most about this hobby is the ability
>to both give (P) and take (F) as we place and find boxes. Now I've
>found a third dimension: meeting fellow letterboxers and exchanging (X)
>personal stamps, among other things.

I agree! One of the nicest parts of the weekend was gathering together
around a table in McGrath's Pub on Saturday night, listening to live Irish
music and downing pints of Guinness and other brews while we looked at each
other's stamp notebooks and collected impressions of each other's personal
stamps. I like this new X category you've created, John! We also stamped
our personal stamps together on a single piece of paper, which I think Rae
is going to scan and will let us know when it is online.

I have to say, seeing John's and Randy's notebooks filled with so many stamp
impressions (Randy said he had found 75, but I think that number has since
gone up) was a real inspiration. And I liked seeing how differently
everyone maintains their notebooks--some use black ink consistently, others
use a variety of colors, some note only the date the box was found, while
others write a brief description of the locale or the challenges of the
quest. Some people are carving fairly large stamps, so we learned that very
small notebooks (only 3" wide) can't accommodate some of the larger stamps
being created.

I was also glad that the person (whose name I've forgotten) involved with
Valley Quest dropped off copies of the Valley Quest clue book (containing
clues for 50+ boxes hidden by schoolchildren in Vermont and New Hampshire).
I had a great time, on my drive back to Massachusetts, stopping in the town
of Woodstock and locating a couple of letterboxes hidden right in town.
Until now I have associated letterboxing with hiking in out-of-the-way
locations, but the Woodstock boxes have inpsired me to start thinking about
where I might place some "in-town" boxes with clues kids can solve.

I've already thanked Tom Cooch privately for his efforts in making this
get-together happen, but hey, why not thank him on the list too!
It was great fun.

Bonnie Sennott
Leverett, Mass.

______________________________________________________

> Hey, don't hold out on those who couldn't go! We want to know details
> of this first convention! How'd it go? Did you have fun?? What?

We got there late saturday afternoon and figured I had time to go up
on the Long Trail and look for Tom's two boxes, ran into more of
Tom's subtle cleverness on the first one and ran into John and Kim
and Erik up there also wandering around on the trail, and with a
little "comparing of notes" with John managed to find the box but
didn't have time to look for the second one before dark and dinner.

Back at the inn Tom passed out the clues to a commerative box he
hid somewhere in the inn, and letterboxers were scouring the pub
for clues like detectives in a Victorian murder mystery trying
to be the first to find it. That honor went to John, who must have
had fewer beers than everyone else :-) [clues to these boxes are at
http://www.sover.net/~tcooch/sherburne.htm]

Gathered in the pub swapping stamps, books, and letterboxing
stories with everyone else, listening to the 4 piece Irish band
"Wind that Shakes the Barley" which featured bagpipes, accordion,
guitar, stories and ballads and a singer who reminded me somewhat
of Sandy Denny, and swapped more stories and stamps and books, and
as John said, we collected a sheet of the personal stamps of
everyone that was there.

Next morning did a trail run in the snow up the long trail to
find Tom's other box, which featured a run through a beautiful birch
forest to a fine lookout point. Back in time for breakfast to
discover that Susan had put together some clues for another box.
Several letterboxers went on a "goose chase" puzzling over the
cryptic clues, chasing down countless bizarre hypotheses around
various parts outside the inn until Kim eventually found the box.
Susan and Erik, of course, were watching the antics of the hunt
from the comfort of the inn.

Then we had to go. What was really cool was meeting the folks in
the pub and exchanging stories, and watching several people hunt for
boxes at once. We'll have to do these things again next year. Rae
caught alot of it on video, including the two hunts, so I guess some
of it will show up on the web site some day.

I thanked Tom privately and thank him again for putting the whole thing
together. The downside of doing such a good job putting the whole
thing together is that he is nominated to do it next year :-)

--
Randy "the mapsurfer"
Orienteer * Letterboxer * Globetrotter
http://www.letterboxing.org/faq.html

sound as tho everyone wants info from the convention but no ones talk much,
me thinks it may be a case of. "party hardy," and dont remember what they
did. ho ho. beer , hot tubs. good friends. wild....

Garth & Kathy