This Thanksgiving holiday I had a chance to do some letterboxing with my
relatives in Grants Pass, OR. I had introduced them to the sport last
Spring. Since that time they have hidden 2 and found one. (SW Oregon is
kind of sparse in the Lb arena.) I want to tell you about one of their
boxes, cuz I like the story. Its all about remembering that there are no
rules:

They placed the Pierce Riffle Letterbox last May. My Sister-In-Law runs by
there (literally) about once a week to check on its status. Her choice was
to hide it in a big-*ss rubber-made container. I don't get it, but hey, its
not my box. Its size makes it a challenge to hide for sure. One week
someone stole the log and stamp. They threw some of the log sheets around
saying "This is stupid" and "Someone should clean this place up". Since then
the sis-in-law has made it her goal to keep the area free of litter! She
replaced the log and had the 12 year old niece make a new stamp. There must
be a geo-cache in the area that is hard to find, because people have started
leaving little trinkets in that big-*ss letterbox container and making notes
in the log about how happy they are to have finally found the geo-cache. My
sis-in-law takes in all in stride. She's tickled that folks have stopped by
no matter why. When I found the box (which I'm calling a half find because
the nephew who took me there couldn't just let me look, he had to point out
all the landmarks ahead of me on the trail because he helped hide the box to
begin with!) So, when I found the letterbox, I made note of the fact in the
log that folks were finding a spontaneous (and merged) letterbox/geo-cache,
not the official geo-cache in that area.

This is not a grand tale. Just one about how letterboxes can change. And,
how its okay to put them back the way they were, or in this case, to let it
change and adapt a bit.

Oh! And I forgot to mention, the other letterbox my relatives and I planted
in Grants Pass last March was placed on a trail with no name at the Fish
Hatchery Park. The family always called it the Horse Trap Trail because of
some personal family event that made the trail memorable to them. They even
called it the Horse Trap Trail letterbox. Recently my brother was talking to
a buddy of his about were to go bike riding (or some such thing) and his
buddy asked if my brother was familiar with the Horse Trap Trail area. Hah!
Can you imagine how funny that would be if 20 years from now they are making
a map of the area and name that little path the Horse Trap Trail?? We're
making history, folks!

Anyway, I'll be posting a couple new letterboxes ("Burnt Turkey" and "Wild
Eyed Things That Peek Through The Limbs") in the Grants Pass, OR area in a
couple days. Hope everyone had a wonderful turkey day!

Annette (aka A.Rose)