Over the past few weeks I've been learning about a new hobby called letterboxing.
It's a pretty simple game. Someone hides a container (usually Tupperware) with a small notebook and stamp inside. Part of the idea is to hide the box someplace pretty or off the beaten path--some place special that people might otherwise miss. Also, although it's not required, people often carve their own stamps, so each one is unique.
Once the box is hidden, the person who placed it then posts clues on the internet about the box's location (see LbNA and Atlas Quest). Others read the clue and use it to find the box. When you find a box you stamp the box stamp in a notebook that you carry. Then you stamp your own stamp, your "trail name", and the date into the notebook in the box. People keep track of how many boxes they've found, and how many boxes they've placed. (This is known as a PFX count, for "Placed, Found, Exchanged.")
Letterboxing is similar to geocaching, except that geocaches are found through GPS coordinates and geocachers trade stuff (small trinkets, coins, etc.) instead of stamps. Although they're separate things, it seems that a lot of people hide hybrid letterbox/geocaches.
I chose "The Spoon Thieves" as our trail name--I'll tell you the story sometime--and decided to just use a spoon stamp we had lying around.
For our first box, we chose one that was easy and close to home--the He Said, She Said #3 box. We went out last weekend and tracked it down; it was challenging enough to be fun, but easy enough that we weren't discouraged.
Then today, since we were going to Iowa for earthdog anyway, I looked up a few clues along I-35. First, we stopped at Sean's Trail (pictured with Moe above). It wasn't really hard once we found the starting point, but we almost gave up looking for the start of the trail. When you read the clues online it seems like they'll be more obvious than they are. We also had to learn to figure out bearings on a compass for this one--a good thing to know.
Next we stopped at A-B-C, an interstate litterbox Letterbox. This one was planted at a highway rest stop (mile 32 of I-35 in Iowa, if you want to know). As the clue suggests, it was a little thorny getting to the box. Once I got to the box I discovered some water had gotten in, and the notebook inside was ruined. The stamp was still OK though, so I was able to stamp it into my book at least.
Then I noticed another fun surprise--although this was not supposed to be a hybrid geocache, a geocacher had left a "travel bug". A travel bug is a metal dog-tag like object with a serial number on it. The bug passes from geocache to geocache by way of people taking and leaving it as they pass through. When you take one, you can enter its serial number on the geocaching website to find out where the bug has been and where it's creator would like it to end up. I was able to find out that this particular bug--named Charlie--began in California.
Although I don't have a GPS device, after poking around the geocaching website I discovered that you don't necessarily need one to find caches if you're familiar with the area you're looking in. I was able to find the local Japanese Friendship Garden cache, and left little Charlie there for someone else to find.
All in all--great fun!
(Letterboxing: P0 F3 X0 / Geocaching: P0 F2)
(Oh, and I also have to say, it was an awesome day for football too--Go Hawks!)
