Brecksville

On May 24th there was a letterboxing meet in Brecksville, Ohio (just south of Cleveland.) My mother and I went together. I think she's hooked now. That day just so happened to be Plant a Letterbox Day...and so I did on the way up there, it's titled: Are We There Yet? If you're ever in the area, I hope you get the opportunity to check it out.

The gathering was great, it was held in Brecksville Reservation park...which is absolutely fabulous! Mom and I arrived late (Mapquest lied about how long it would take us to get there...and, well, I did take a little time to plant that box.) As soon as we showed up, we grabbed a little something to eat and dived right in to the stamps that were around. I have to say that Ohio boxers are some of the nicest people I know. It was a wonderful day of stamping and chatting, with beautiful weather to boot!

We spent the evening in a hotel, and Granny Butterfly and Bone Yard Recorder also decided to stay at the same hotel. We all had dinner together, and after a little down time we hit the sack. The next morning we all headed out together to Bay Village, Ohio (west of Cleveland) to find the Who's Afraid of Ghosts? series in the Huntington Reservation park. This is a beautiful park with plenty of trails, and the letterboxes were wonderfully done. We had some trouble with the "Witch's Hill" box, and started to become frustrated. However, I would not give up on the search! We studied the clues some more, and in an "Aha!" moment, figured out where it was hiding. The clues were misleading, but we found the box none the less!

We found all of them, though Granny Butterfly had to leave before we completed the whole series so that she could get home before it became dark. When we were through, Bone Yard Recorder, my mom, and I all went to have some dinner at the Moosehead Saloon in Westlake. It is a wonderful restaurant with awesome decor...and the food was great!

Our weekend near Cleveland had come to an end, and we said our goodbyes to BYR and headed home. We thought we could stop off to find a couple boxes on the way home, but the first one seemed to be missing, and when we reached the spot for the second one, it had become too dark and we could not retrieve it. I vowed to go back there another day.

Road Trip to Fremont, part 2

So, we begin Sunday morning by having the hotel's complementary breakfast, and leaving the Moms in the room to rest (check out was not until noon!) Jones and I headed off to meet up with Bone Yard Recorder at the event location.

When we arrived, we help her finish setting up, grab a county map that she generously had for us, received some WOM clues, and headed out the door to find some letterboxes.

Being that Bone Yard Recorder does a lot of genealogy work in the local cemeteries, that's where a lot of the boxes were hidden. We were taken to some small, old graveyards and we saw some beautiful headstones and statues. The weather could not have been more perfect for our outing.

We swung by the hotel to pick up Mom and Mom. We went after a few more letterboxes and then headed back to the event locale. We learned about how to take care of headstones and clean them up...DO NOT use bleach!!...and also how the repairing process of a broken headstone is done.

After the meeting, we made sure to stamp all the gathering stamps into our logbooks, and then said our goodbyes, and started to head home. It was quite an enjoyable weekend. Both Jones and I are lucky to have such a close relationship with our mothers, and lucky to have a close relationship with each other.

Road Trip to Fremont, part 1

Keepin up with the Jones' and I were planning to head up to Fremont. There was a gathering planned by Bone Yard Recorder that we wanted to attend. We decided we should bring our mothers along...kind of a mother-daughter outing. They had never been letterboxing before, and since the gathering was also a meeting of the Kin Hunters, we figured that if they were not into the letterboxing aspect, they'd still enjoy the genealogy aspect.

Well, they enjoyed the letterboxing. And, really, who wouldn't? *grin*

We began early on Saturday May 17th, hoping to do some boxing on the way up to Fremont. The very first place we stopped was at the bridge near Jones where I have a letterbox hidden. We thought it'd be neat to have my mom's first find one of my boxes. It's one of my favorite carvings as well. Then we went to pick up Jones' mom, and we were off.

We ran into a detour as we started, and that led us to a garage sale...which we all found some good deals at. In fact, we stopped at a few garage sales. The best deal of the day (at least for me) was a bunch of zip lock style bags for $1.50. Jones and I plan on splitting them up between the two of us. They are the industrial type, heavy duty. They will be great for the letterboxes we plan on hiding!

So we finally get to stop for a letterbox at a small, yet pretty park. After some searching, the box was found, and two people were now hooked!

Next stop was another park where we had to find a "love tree." You've all seen them, and I'm sure some of you have added your own carving to one...or started a tree of with it's first so-and-so ♥s so-and-so. We found the tree, and each one of us added our name along with the love of our life, but in sharpie, not knife. Though we found the tree, we did not find the box. I suspect flood.

We then went to a cemetery. There are 24 stamps in this place! and there are some nice headstones here as well. We all enjoyed ourselves. We made one more stop before heading to the hotel. We were all so tired, and we had to be up early the next day for the letterboxing event!