Hoolie, Hoolie Monsters resolved

Anyone who had a care about the Hoolie Hoolie monsters that were a concern on the last couple of hiking campouts, you'll be relieved to know that the mystery is solved.

While we were at the gathering a couple of weekends ago, Fearless Fox heard the hoolie hoolying again, this time during the day. It seems the hoolie hoolie monster is a turkey, or more specifically, a flock of turkeys. Although they are known to roost at night, they are occasionally disturbed and move, and presumably they bumped into Fearless Fox and Lightning when they were moving that fateful night.

It's always a relief when what you thought might be something that could eat you turns out instead to be something you eat.

Hoolie on, you ol' turkeys, we'll see you in November!

Visiting The Red

I got up bright and early Saturday morning and jumped in my car to head toward Carthage for a meeting. I took my boxing stuff because I expected it would take a half a day or a little more, but Fearless Fox and Lightning were at Camporee, meaning I was on my own until Sunday and I might just have enough time to dodge over to Shreveport for a couple boxes.
Well I was not very far from home when I got a call that my meeting was a no-go, so what did I have in front of me but a whole found day! I don't know about you, but a found day is the best kind of day of all - you had something planned and it fell through, so you can do whatever you want and no one expects anything else of you. Now I could've gone home and cleaned house, but that is NOT how you use a found day. Nope. You have to do something impractical and spur of the moment. Sooo...off to Shreveport I went. Thankfully I had been planning for a Shreveport day at some point in the near future and had clues and one of my crazy homemade maps all made up, so I had everything I needed to spend the whole day there. The only two things I really regretted was that I had not brought a box with me to plant and that I had not emailed JBanana ahead of time because I thought my timeframe would have been terribly limited. I was running on automatic between Henderson and Carthage when suddenly I noticed that there was tons of snow along the roadside, on the rooftops, in the trees - everywhere! I was amazed - I had no idea that much snow was that close to where I live! I debated jumping out and building a snowman in someone's yard, but it was already almost 9 a.m., so they were probably mostly already up and out of bed, so they would've seen me and it wouldn't have been a surprise. That would've been cool though - making a snowman in someone's yard for them to find when they got up in the morning! So anyway, on to Shreveport with me, and I got there about 9:20. I went straight on across the river and found My Favorite Animal by JBanana. Right off the bat - a really cool location and a cute stamp! I sat there in the little park in my sweatshirt and hooded jacket over a pair of capris pulled on over stirrup pants with my hiking shoes on and standard ponytail. I was sure nice and toasty, but I noticed that in daylight I didn't look too pulled together. Oh well. Surely the day wouldn't call for any better than what I was. If it did, I had my uniform still in the car. Maybe the scouter look would be less conspicuous than the homeless look? Hmmm...questionable! Anyway - I spent a little time pulling a plan together with my homemade map of Shreveport. If you've never seen one of my nifty little maps, I map the locations of all the boxes and then print them from Mapquest, cut them out and tape them together. I wind up with a map of only the parts of a town where there are boxes, so that the map has several arms and flappy pieces all taped together. It's a sight I know, but I get only what I need and I can print it in a readable size. Fearless Fox rolls his eyes when I start making one of my maps. I'm not making it for him though. So anyway, I marked the boxes I could find on the map, figured out a plan of attack and set about my way. From The Metal Zoo, I went to find The Purple Ladybug's box. Now I just loved her clues. I had no idea where they were leading me until I actually got there and they made perfect sense. I got out of my car and debated momentarily about how safe it would be, then I noticed that I even had police cover - two patrol cars parked in the parking lot. I happily locked my car without shuffling stuff to the trunk, then I went ahead and started meandering around. One small piece of the clue was giving me a hard time and I so wanted to reach out and ASK someone passing by what they thought it meant - there were so many people and surely one of them would've known - but I didn't want to jeopardize the box by asking an outsider so I let the question buzz around in my head instead. I gradually homed in on where I thought the box was and began to act like I was waiting impatiently for someone who was late. Unfortunately, I don't wear a watch but I realized this might be a good piece of gear to add to my letterboxing ensemble. As I waited and waited, I nonchalantly fished around where I thought the box must have been, but kept coming up empty-handed. I finally decided the waiting act was wearing thin and I would begin drawing attention if I loitered about much longer, especially with the Boys in Blue in the parking lot. What I wouldn't have done for another boxer to be my cover while I looked! This wound up being a theme of the day. The Purple Ladybug assured me the box had been in place as recently as the week before, which was not terribly surprising to me since I didn't feel I had thoroughly searched the area. I headed down to the Sci-Port area where there were three boxes. I wound up parking in the perfect location for all three, although I was prepared to cover a few blocks in the course of hunting this grouping. The first, Discover The Red, was in the Sci-Port and I am fairly sure it was in the pay area. I cruised in to hang out in the lobby and scope things out, but since I had already decided I would be returning to Shreveport for Purple Ladybug's box, I decided not to pay to get in until I had my husband and son with me and we could all enjoy an excursion through the science museum. I did, however, manage to slip past the "Armbands Required" area by pulling my sleeves down over my wrists and sliding in with a large family. While in the restricted area, I managed to make a quick perusal of the area but I didn't find what I was looking for before an employee approached me. I saw her coming up beside me so I put on my best "puzzled mother" look as she very kindly shuffled me back to where I was supposed to be while I apologized profusely for getting confused and going too far. Although I think she really WAS nice, I wasn't really confused. Another "X" for the trip, although again I slated it for the next trip so we could all enjoy the museum, and from what I saw of it, it's going to be cool! And off I was to find Rolling on the Red, which was either gone or underwater - either of which was entirely possible. Although I had now been hanging out by the Red River for about an hour, it was at this moment that I first realized how high the river was. It was clearly out of its banks a little, or appeared to be, since the boat launch gangway was underwater. I managed to lose my keys a couple times while there so I could get a good look at the underside, but with no luck. I headed off down Clyde Fant Parkway to find the 3rd of the Three of Hearts series by JBanana. I had thought I had a walk ahead of me and was not fully tuned in to what I was there for until I happened by one element of the clues and suddenly I realized I must be in radar range of the box. I opened my clues and sure enough, I should have been homing in by then. I had so been enjoying the beautiful walk along Clyde Fant that I nearly missed my turn! I quickly found the box where it was supposed to be, and this was a great place to sit down and take my time stamping in and further enjoying the view. I had earlier noticed the river was high, but this was the first time I really stopped to watch the river. Now I don't know what it is about river cities, but they have their own sense of pace, don't they? As I watched the Red flow steadily downstream, I felt myself slide into the pace of the city. It was a gloriously beautiful day and a great day to be in Shreveport, LA. I thought that several times throughout the day. After finding the 3rd Heart box, I got my car and headed south on Clyde Fant with the windows rolled down and the radio blaring. I was in the mood for some classic rock, but there were no classic rock stations that I could find, so I settled for country. There are lots of great country songs out right now, so that was just fine too. Somehow I missed the turnoff for the Stoner Avenue Boat Launch, so by the time I realized it I had to get my good ol' map out and figure out where I was. I got myself back on track and headed back north for Stoner. There it was. It wasn't so hard to find! I turned in and realized I was going to have to be on two opposite ends of the park so I decided to go to the less crowded side first. I parked as directed and got out and found my way down a narrow little trail as I searched out Team New Hampshire's Furs Class Stamp. I don't know exactly what I was expecting of the stamp, but I was delighted by the idea when I saw it. Clever. Very clever. This was also the one and only time during the whole day that I did any trail walking, which is where I usually find myself when I letterbox. I returned to my car to find it had been surrounded by beer-swilling fishing men who had apparently had quite a catch already that morning, so that I smelled the parking lot before I found it. Interesting. They were very courteous as I wound my way through them to my car and one of them was kind enough to offer me hand motions as I backed up to let me know when I had cleared their trucks and coolers and so forth. Entirely unnecessary, but a friendly gesture all the same. I waved to my briefly acquired new friends and watched in my rear view mirror as they filled in my parking spot. I found my way to the other end of the park and to a completely different crowd - skaters. They have a nice little skateboard park right there close to the boat docks. I wondered idly if there was a correlation. As I got out and looked around to see that there were several cars in the area, some of them with people in them, I glanced over the clues for the 1st of the Three of Hearts boxes by JBanana and decided it was good that she led me down a paved trail. And it was good, except that the clues stopped off before I got into the more secluded area! Hmmm...this was going to be interesting retrieving this box when I couldn't tell who was watching me and who wasn't. As I stood by my car arranging my stuff and contemplating my plan of attack, I saw a guy get out of his car and begin walking very slowly down the trail. I swung in behind him and decided I would walk a distance into the tree line and then turn around and come back. He continued to walk slowly and I wondered why he was going so slow, since he appeared to be a runner. I finally decided I could begin to talk on my cell phone and just idly wander down where the box was as though I was just pacing while on the phone. I managed to drop my marker box and scoop it and the hidden box up and make my way back to my car slowly, talking the whole time. Now one time I got busted using that tactic because I only had my phone open but not dialed. I was in the middle of a sentence when my phone rang. Oops Now when I use the cell phone trick, I dial my voice mail and leave myself some pretty weird messages as I carry on a one-sided conversation. I finished stamping in and then had the daunting task of returning the box, while even MORE cars had arrived and their drivers were hanging out in their cars facing the trail. Now how was I going to do this without a partner in crime? I again got on my phone and talked to my presumed other party about when they were going to be getting there and walked down to scope out the situation. It was not good. Now between the time my slow-walking runner guy had struck off and the time I was attempting to return the box was about 7-8 minutes. As I was scoping out the new cars, the slow runner guy came running out of the tree line, acting as though he was finishing a very long run and had covered quite a long distance. He plod-jogged along to one of the new arriving cars and I saw that it was a woman. He was trying to impress a woman! I so wanted to tell her he had just gone into the woods and waited and then came running out like a macho guy to impress her, but I opted to watch the game a little while instead. I couldn't quite hear their conversation (yes, I will eavesdrop on strangers given the opportunity), but I'll bet he was telling her he had just finished running the whole two miles up to the other end of the trail and back, all the while drying his hair with a towel and guzzling gatorade or one of the more hip sports drinks. I got a big kick out of watching him, but in the meantime decided I was going to have to come back to hide the box. I really, really didn't want to have to do it because I was planning to leave this part of town and not return, but I didn't see a choice. I tossed the box in my car, got in and left. Grrr. This urban boxing was getting the best of me between not knowing how to attack them without another person to help and not being able to rehide for the same reason. Still though, I was having fun. I headed away from the riverbank, and for that I was a little sad. It was such a nice, peaceful area. I had the distinct impression I kept watching the same log float downriver over and over again because it seemed every time I looked at the river there was a single long log afloat. I couldn't help but wonder why they were spaced so there was only one, and where they all came from. Anyway, on to Columbia Park I went, and three more boxes. This was one of those lovely neighborhood parks with one side running along a major street and the other three sides surrounded by residential streets. It was a clever park with some neat features, not the least of which were the interesting sculptures that housed one of the boxes. I parked and scoped out the park from my car, but I couldn't figure out where I was relative to all three boxes. It wasn't a huge park so I figured it didn't really matter anyway - I could walk the path in five minutes or so, so if I had to walk it two or three times it wouldn't be an issue. Now one other problem I kept running into was the fact that the ground was saturated everywhere I went, so sitting down on the ground wasn't really an option. I approached the sculptures and casually felt around the inside of the one the clues for Daisy and the Snowman called out. Nothing. This was going to be more difficult than I had thought. I feigned interest in the other sculptures too, peering at them and walking around very close to them, then peeking inside the one I was interested in. I could see - nothing. I was afraid that box wasn't there. Still though, I realized I had hardly looked well enough. I finally discovered an angle that would be very difficult to be seen from, I got down on my knees, took off my sunglasses and peered inside. Ahhh - I could see it - neatly tucked high up in the sculpture. The next trick was retrieving it because short of laying down on my back and sticking my hand up the sculpture, I couldn't reach it. I finally realized I could get a stick and push it down from the other side, so I got up and headed on down the trail with the intention of finding the other two boxes AND a stick. I quickly found a couple of sticks that were probably tools, and I found the second box, Bananas is my Business. The third - On the Map by Blue Butterfly - I saw where it was but as I walked up to it a dog set off an alarm and every dog in the neighborhood started barking. And to make matters worse, their barking resonated all around the park. I felt like every person in the park and half of them in the houses were looking at me! I'm sure that wasn't entirely accurate, but I didn't glance around to find out. I returned how I came and took the one box with me, and when I reached the sculptures, I brandished my sticks, chose my weapon, and managed to prompt the box out of its hiding spot. Happily, I took the two boxes to the car and stamped in. Daisy and the Snowman was a cute stamp only box by JBanana, but her Bananas is my Business was awesome! Not only that, but it had a hitchhiker - not the rubber kind, but the six-legged kind. I was a little startled as I opened the pouch the box was in and out climbed a beautiful specimen of hemiptera - he was gorgeous! He must have decided that warm little pouch was a great winter home! As I finished up with that box, I tucked it away, folded the flap away, and carefully tucked the bug back inside. I decided that I would try that dog's box again, but this time I would approach from the opposite direction. I replaced the Banana box and then quietly eased toward the dog's fence, thinking he wouldn't notice me this time - I was wrong. He did notice me, and while he barked away, not as many other dogs barked with him. I took that as a good sign. He had obviously lost credibility with his canine buddies when he alerted on a park visitor instead of a real intruder. Still - I retreated to rethink the situation. I continued on around the trail and replaced the box in the sculpture, pushing it as high as I could and making sure it couldn't be seen. I watched the dog from across the park and debated what my next move would be. I was stinking tired of not getting boxes that day, so I wanted that box. I decided to move to the other parking lot at the park, if for no other reason than to start fresh with the folks down there. I headed down the trail, but this time as I approached, I cut up to the fence line very early on, so that I was creeping down the fenceline in hopes the dog wouldn't see me. I was nice and quiet, patiently moving forward. I was within arms' reach of the place where the box rested - and the dog went on high alert. Stupid dog! And now - not only was the dog drawing attention to me, but I was also in clear position for having been being sneaky. It was time to back away for the sake of the location of the box. Again - a little cover would've been a good thing! Where's Lightning when I need him? For a change of pace, I headed to Centenary College to find Boxalots' series there. And again - I was buffaloed. There were several things going on on campus, possibly a parents' day? Lots of people roamed around, all dressed up, and there I was in my homeless get-up. And I was cruising up and down grassy hills instead of properly using the sidewalks. I thought, at one time that the coast was clear, so I dove into some bushes to look for one of the boxes. As I was emerging, a man about my age, dressed in dockers and a denim shirt with polish shiny loafers was unloading about 20 pizzas right in front of where I was. I dove back into the bushes and waited for a few minutes while he and another couple of men had a discussion about their kids and the recital they were there for and what a nice day it was - yeah, yeah, yeah, just move on PLEASE! They finally took off with the pizzas and I quickly got out of the bushes before someone else came along. I decided I couldn't really risk another similar occurrence, so I wrote those boxes off to a different day too - maybe between semesters! The good thing was - I was running somewhere around 50/50 for finds, so I had a good second trip in the works. All those pizzas made me realize I was hungry (it was, after all, 2:30 p.m.), so I went off in search of somewhere to eat. I wound up at Pizza Hut and carried all my stuff in with me so I could plan forward again and make notes. I ordered a veggie lovers personal pan pizza with no olives and a salad, and my friend, She Who Volunteers Me For Everything, called to torture herself about my fun day vs her day at work. My pizza arrived - pepperoni - so I called the girl back and reminded her I wanted a Veggie Lover's and she smiled and took it back to the kitchen. I hung up the phone, folded my stuff away, and waited for my pizza. Sure enough, it came along pretty quickly - Super Supreme. Okay. Hmmm.. Maybe there was a Texas/Louisiana translation issue here that I was unaware of. I called her back again and very clearly said (because I don't speak Louisianian so I was counting on her being able to understand well-enunciated Texan) I would like a Veggie Lovers' Personal Pan Pizza without any olives and she smiled yet again and apologized and promised to get it right. On the third try, I got what appeared to be a mostly Veggie Lovers (there was still a little meat) with olives. Oh well. I picked the olives, ate the meat, called it good and got out of there. She was a sweet little ol' girl, just not too bright apparently. In the course of my planning, I realized I was at that moment closer to Stoner Avenue than I would be again. It had been a few hours since I had been there, so surely the traffic would at least be different. I pulled in again and scoped out the parking lot presence. A few folks were there, one who was parked right in front of the box and he was sitting there facing out toward the river. He kept bending down over the passenger seat in his truck, so he obviously had his mind on something else. I figured this was as good a chance as I would get to replace the box. I got out, pulled out the old cell phone and began talking. I ambled down by where the box belonged and sat down, as though sitting down to have a long conversation on the phone. I managed to casually get it rehidden. I glanced up a couple times at the guy in front of the box and each time I looked he was laid over the front seat. Good, I guess. I was close to having to leave Shreveport, but I had one last box I wanted to find - a WOM box - before I headed south to get some other boxes before I went home for a 7:30 p.m. commitment. I was able to find it quite easily, but there was a large parking lot sale going on nearby so that people were using the parking area intended for box retrieval. As per the rest of the day, I had to find a way to casually approach the box. But I DID get it, and it's companion, and they were great images. Cute, cute! I got myself to the highway south through Keithville where I wanted to get Chimp Haven, but had unfortunately not gotten enough information to find it before leaving home. I got to Mansfield but realized I really couldn't go further south for JBK's LSS box. I turned for Logansport, where I knew I had to get my mother's A Unique Landmark. I was dismayed to find that Logansport was only the jumping off spot, but I followed the directions to the site. Now let me be clear - THIS is a site well worth visiting! I still find myself shocked to discover some of the really cool reminders of our rich Texas history just stuck out in the middle of nowhere. I know that if you look at the map you will think that box is nowhere near any other box, but GO! Cool site - cool stamp. I hightailed it from there across country, familiar because of its proximity to Camp Pirtle - my home away from home. I barely made it to my 7:30 deal,but I did get there, tired and relaxed from a day of sunshine. Most of the boxes I found were JBanana's. She does a great job of making her containers fit the situation - very few standard LNL's like we use in Texas. I found several neat places I wouldn't have seen without looking for a letterbox. I saw a side of Shreveport I've never seen - a beautiful city with almost a tropical feel to it. All the boxes I found in Shreveport were outstanding - and the ones I couldn't find had enough promise of excellence that I'm anxious to go back with a partner in crime. Shreveport is well worth the trip - and I suspect Springtime is the time to go!-- Barefoot Lucy"It's not about footwear, it's about philosophy"

The 4C Trail, 3 new boxes on a hike, GC'ing without trying, and Hoolie-hoolies

As y'all know, I don't usually accompany Fearless Fox and Lightning on their overnight hikes. Sometimes I pick them up at the end of the trail, but most of the time I use the weekend to do "my thing", which is usually letterboxing if I don't have scout commitments.Well I recently decided I needed to try to make at least one overnight hike with them, so I did it this past weekend. We debated where and how far to go, but finally decided to stay close to home and hike the 4Cs Trail so Lightning could finish it up (he'd previously backpacked the lower 2/3's of it). If you want to look up more information about the trail, you can google it by its proper name - the Four C National Recreation Trail, or you can just follow this link: http://gorp.away.com/gorp/resource/us_trail/tx_crock.htm

We packed up Friday evening, knocked out a commitment Saturday morning and headed out around noon for Alto and points beyond. We planned to do at least 6 miles total on the trail, but it was doubtful I could make the 12 round trip, so we took two vehicles and dropped one at each end, then started at the northern-most point of the trail - Neches Bluff. Now Fearless Fox didn't want to overburden me, so he took on some of my weight and Lightning took on some too. I, on the other hand, carried three letterboxes (hehe - bulky but light), 3 raw wrapped potatoes, clothing, a little water (we didn't carry much because we have a filter) and some of the camp gear we would need when we stopped for the night. I also carried a printout of Ryan's current adventures on the Florida Trail to read after we settled in, along with some geocaching clues (there were no letterboxes on this trail). My pack, after all was said and done, weighed in around 18 pounds. I normally carry about 10 in my letterboxing backpack and I don't normally go more than about 3 miles round trip at most, so I was in for a challenge!

We stepped off and within 500 feet of the trailhead we had a geocache to look for. Now it is quite a lot different hunting for stashes with a backpack on. FF and Lightning were both way too loaded (their packs - NOT them) to be able to bend over and hunt, and I had not managed to get used to the weight or get it distributed properly, so there we were, staggering around like drunks looking for a cache - in the woods, full of leaves and pine straw, with nothing but coordinates to tell us where it was. Five minutes of bushwhacking and running late getting on the trail besides (if you must know, we were late because I asked that we stop off at Mission Tejas for one last bathroom stop before we hit the trail - I know, I know - WIMP!), we decided to leave that geocache behind and move on. Another 600 feet and we were closing in on another geocache! Still wobbly, we decided it would be best to get some distance behind us so we could all get our feet and get a pace going (stopping to find stuff really throws a hitch in getting stretched out on the trail). Besides that, I was finding it too distracting from the scenery to keep watching my GPSr.

Now let me tell you - anyone who wants to say East Texas is flat is LYING! We may not have mountains, but we sure have some tall hills. The 4Cs begins on a bluff (Neches Bluff) and you walk along the ridge for a good while. While we walked along the ridge, I looked out over some beautiful valleys and I couldn't help but wondering how far down they really go because I could see down to one rise, and then maybe down to another, but I was pretty sure I wasn't seeing down to the bottom. I'm thinking most folks don't know about these lovely valleys because they usually hike the trail during green seasons and all those leafy trees hide the heights you are really at.

Anyway, we trucked along for awhile and struck a rhythm, stopped a couple times to adjust our packs, then made a turn and looked out on a stunning view. We decided this view was the perfect backdrop for the first box, so I dropped my pack and dug around until I found one of the boxes. Now realize, I had just kind of thrown my stuff in because I wound up with a few specifics, but basically caught leftovers from their packs. I knew in the beginning that I would be the one to carry the boxes, so they went in first. I'm sure y'all realized this, but it didn't quite occur to me sitting on the floor in my kitchen that you don't necessarily pack in the order you know what you'll be carrying. Fearless Fox almost certainly was paying attention to my packing and I can't help thinking he was sitting there smirking silently while thinking "Newbie!". I wound up completely unpacking my pack, grabbing a box, then repacking my bag - this time with a little more logic to the order of things. This became a repeated event several times throughout the trip.

We got the first box hidden and we were walking away when FF noticed a GC in plain view. I scrambled out my GC pages to see which we might have found, noted it, we signed the log and moved on. So yeah, the first box is not very far from a geocache. We'll see how that goes.

We cruised along for a little while longer until we came to another notable view with a distinctive feature - great place for the second box. By now I had had time to think about how I had repacked my bag, so I dropped it again dug to grab the box and I repacked yet again while FF hid the box. Satisfied with this second hide, I put my pack back on and off we went. Later, sitting around the campfire and looking at my GC pages, I realized we had missed another GC that was at the location of the second box. Interestingly, we had pretty thoroughly searched around the obvious sorts of places and ruled them out, so I'm thinking the GC might have either been missing or another bushwhacking venture.

My intent had been to place two boxes in fairly close, but not too close, proximity to the trailhead. The trail from the outset is a bit of a challenge compared to the many flat trails you can find in East Texas. Lots of up and down...At that point, I was content to settle in for the rest of the haul for the day, for which Fearless Fox and Lightning were glad. My backpack, after two repacks, felt a whole lot better, I had adjusted my shoelaces a couple of times, and we had all stretched out and gotten a rhythm going. Shortly before the second box, we had started a fast decline from the bluff, following switchbacks and the natural contour of the valley.

It seemed like we had hardly been going at all when we hit flat ground and found ourselves in what one of Lightning's scout leaders affectionately calls The Mile of Mud. If you recall, when I camped with the troop a few weeks ago, we attempted a night cache in the rain. This same leader was very hesitant to go out for that cache, citing the fact that we were very close to The Mile of Mud. He says The Mile of Mud with an omenous haunting innuendo.

Frankly, I was a little curious to see what The Mile of Mud was, and I had my chance on Saturday. Well - you might be disappointed to know that The Mile of Mud is a utility service road. Very primitive, but a road none the less. If you are disappointed by that fact, it is only because you have never SEEN The Mile of Mud. When we first hit it, I wasn't too impressed by the puddles here and there.

The Mile of Mud briefly meets the Neches River before it veers off again and Lighting opted to stop for a backpack break at the river. It was warm this weekend and we were all struggling a little under our loads, so we had broken a sweat and were glad for a break. We all threw off our packs and lay down on the leaves near the river. Fearless Fox had also brought along Snickers bars and I discovered the first reason I LOVE backpacking - guilt-free chocolate! We all shared a bottle of water and talked about what would happen to us if the huge tree leaning precariously across the river with all the exposed roots were to suddenly decide to fall. We tried to figure out how to reach a fishing line that was hanging from another tree overhanging the river without getting wet, but gave up on that because we figured it had been there a long time anyway and we didn't really want to see what might be hung on the hook. After about fifteen minutes, it was time to move on, so we collected our bags and I adjusted my shoelaces again, and off we went to tackle The Mile of Mud.

I soon found out how this place got its name. You could hardly call it an access road! There were huge DEEP puddles that covered the hole road, so that at times we had to run up the hill along the edges to get around the water, and sometimes these puddles were 20 feet long. Where possible, we tromped on through (that's what you are supposed to do if you strictly follow LNT), but most of the time we could stick our walking sticks into the puddle and find the water was 18 inches or more deep. LNT is nice - but sometimes you just have to go around. For much of the time, I was bringing up the rear, so I was following behind the two of them, putting my feet where their feet had just been. This seemed like a good plan most of the time, but sometimes their weight had softened the mud so that when my turn came to pass through, the mud grabbed ahold of my hiking shoes and tried to keep them. Glad I had tightened up my laces! After a half a mile or so of this, I visualized what it must be like to be the leader following behind 15-20 boys. I understood - finally - the level of respect my scout leader friend was expressing by dubbing this stretch The Mile of Mud.

As quickly as we found ourselves on The Mile of Mud, the stretch came to an end and we were at a small pond. At this point it was about 4 p.m. and time to start thinking about where to stop for the night. Running, fresh water was the first criteria, flat ground was the second. This pond was definitely NOT the kind of water we were looking for. We crossed the bridge at the pond and headed up the hill. This particular bridge was only hanging on by a tree - during the Spring deluge the bridge had been picked up off its supports and was going to be carried away by the raging water of the overflowing stream coming off the hill if it had not been rescued by one solitary very strong tree. It was a little humbling to look at the bridge's supports six feet from the bridge itself, which had settled into its rescuer and was still passable, even off its base. There's a lot of power in running water!

We started up the hill, but unlike the easy switchbacks we had experienced coming down off the bluff, this trail led us straight up an equally steep, equally long hill. I had had a pretty easy time of it so far, since we had taken one good long break and a couple of shorter breaks, but the trip up the hill consisted of 30 second stops to catch a breath before continuing on up. Fearless Fox and Lightning were both struggling because they were carrying some of my weight and I was struggling because I was doing the hardest part of the hike thus far in the third mile of the trip carrying almost twice what I normally carried on a 3 mile round trip.

It gets darker faster in heavy woods and Fearless Fox was hunting for a stopping spot for us in earnest. I was strictly an Indian on this trip, so I wasn't going to stop until told to stop and I knew that wouldn't be until he was happy with where we were. I wasn't about to complain, but I really WAS getting tired. I also felt badly that they were carrying some of my weight, but there was nothing to be done about that at the moment.

Finally FF found us a spot that seemed perfect! We dropped our packs and dropped our bodies to rest for a few minutes before we set about gathering wood and setting up camp. I stood up and nearly fell off my feet, which Lightning got a kick out of. He asked if I felt like I could float, and that really was what I felt like.

Before long, we all got up and started gathering deadwood for a fire. We scavenged our way up a hill from where we were and threw wood down toward our camp. Now those of you who know Lightning may be a little surprised by this, but he has aspirations of participating in Track and Field in high school - specifically, he wants to do javelin catching. As far as I know, there aren't many participants in that event and he should do well, especially since he has been practicing. He was downhill from FF, so when FF got ready to throw a tree branch (albeit a dead tree branch) about the size of a man's arm and about four feet long down the hill, he hollered to Lightning to let him know it was coming. Lightning turned around as the branch hurtled down the hill toward him and like - well - like lightning, he reached into the air and snagged it, pulling it into his chest as he caught it. I had heard FF yell, so I turned to see why he yelled just in time to see this all play out. In the in-flight moments, when it was obvious this rather large piece of a tree was about to nail my son - the child who still loves me like I'm perfect - I began thinking "Now how do I blow SOS with a whistle and where IS my whistle?" This might seem like an odd thing to think, maybe a little overdramatic, but in the car on the way to the trail Lightning and I had been practicing our sign language, and once on the trail we had all been spelling things out using morse code and taking turns guessing what was being spelled. Well you know - it's pretty darned hard to play the ABC game on a trail! Anyway, I knew sign language would be highly ineffective to get attention in case of an emergency, so you see, it made good sense that I was thinking about whistling SOS (and as a matter of fact, I knew exactly where my whistle was - strung to the outside of my backpack)! Lightning's wrist was strained a little, but being a good letterboxer, he wasn't about to let a little pain get him down and he and we laughed about it after he shed only the slightest of tears.

We pulled out all the camp gear we needed and set about getting ready to cook supper and set up our tarps. We had made a calculated guess that we could do without a heavy tent in favor of two lighter tarps for cover. We knew we were hanging heavily on the fact that the expected rains would go north of us and we wouldn't get any rain to speak of. We lay one tarp on the ground and strung the other over the first to make a lean-to, then we stretched out our sleeping bags to air out before we went to bed. Home!

I went on to dig the potatoes out of my bag while FF fished the steaks out of his - we had found some frozen ribeyes in the freezer and decided we could carry those in and cook them and they would be a perfect camp meal. Sure enough, they had just defrosted to the point of being cold but pliable - perfect for stabbing with a stick! The guys got the fire going while I reorganized my pack and got out the clothes for all of us that we would later change into. After the fire was blazing (and I wish I could say it was cozy, but it was an unseasonably warm night so it was actually a little uncomfortable), I threw the potatoes down into the flames to bake away. They began steaming almost immediately and threw off a delicious aroma. After sitting around and listening to Lightning read his book of lists to us, we finally decided we should go ahead and cook the steaks. Lightning went off in search of good sticks to hang the steaks on. He came up with a couple and he and Fearless Fox strung the meat on the sticks and started them going. I declared myself the judge of when they would be done, so they would periodically swing the sticks over to me to examine in the light of my headlamp. I had just declared Lightning's done and was about to tell FF to let me take a look at the steak he was cooking, when suddenly it fell off into the fire. Now this was ribeye and we were hungry! He fished it out and we rinsed it off with koolaid and we proceeded to eat it. It tasted just fine, and I think that rinsing it with koolaid served to make it not taste nearly as gritty as if we had not rinsed it off at all. The next steak tasted much better - no grit. Now I have to say - there is nothing better than eating meat cooked over a fire with your fingers. Very primitive. After I finished mine though, I suddenly realized my hands had stuff all over them and I sat there for a minute trying to decide whether to risk going down to the stream and washing them in the unfiltered water, or wasting drinking water, or creating more trash by using up a paper towel. Finally it occurred to me - I had just eaten a steak with my hands so my manners at that point had gone down the gutter for the day. I proceeded to lick my hands clean and it tasted oh so good! (Sorry Mom, I know you taught me better manners than that, and really, I use them most days). The baked potatoes were done about the time my handwashing was finished, so we knocked the potatoes out of the fire to cool. We all three sat staring at them as though we expected them to make a run for it, but they didn't. Finally we convinced Lightning to touch one and see if it was cool enough and he said they were, so we passed them around and opened them up and ate them with stick forks we had made (I learned that the less gear you get dirty, the easier it is to manage camp). Before we had left the house, I had doctored the potatoes with cheese and salt and butter, so that when we opened them they had the rich flavor of a baked potato without having to bring all the fixings with us. Nice. THIS was living like kings and became another thing I love about backpacking!

After cleaning up supper real well (during which Fearless Fox stepped on Lightning's hand - injury #2) so as not to unduly attract night visitors, we settled in to talk and watch the fire. We all had our headlamps on, but left them off to save batteries. It gets DARK way out in the middle of nowhere! Before long, we heard rustling in the woods, like something BIG approaching us. We all kind of eyed each other and decided to ignore the sounds. Things always rustle around in the woods, right? Right.

But at this point, I have to flip back to a few weeks ago when Lightning and Fearless Fox had backpacked a different part of the 4C Trail. FF came home to tell a story about hearing sounds after Lightning had gone to bed in the tent (it was much colder that weekend). FF was reading by the fire, when he started hearing the rustling sounds, but was suddenly alarmed when he heard first one creature start with a loud "hoolie-hoolie" sound, followed by several others - close! He thought they were surrounded at first, since the hoolie-hoolie seemed to come from everywhere! He finally figured out that the racket was coming from the other side of the tent and that Lightning was between him and the unknown noisy intruder. It's a hard decision to know whether to shoo a hoolie-hoolie thing and risk drawing attention to yourself or be quiet and risk it thinking it can conquer your camp. What do you do? Especially if you don't know what goes hoolie-hoolie in the dark? Personally, I clear my throat - nice and noncommital and gives whatever-it-is an easy out if we both pretend I don't know it's there and am only clearing my throat. It went on for a minute or so and finally whatever they were rustled off and hoolie-hoolied further off. He had planned on going to bed soon, but was very uneasy with falling off to sleep, for fear he wouldn't wake up before the hoolie-hoolie things were upon them again. I like to think I'm pretty comfortable camping and not many things frighten me in the wild (wild hawgs being the notable exception), but I couldn't get over his story and I tried to do a little research to see what goes hoolie-hoolie. I was stumped. Whatever it was stayed outside the light of his headlamp, so he had not the slightest idea what it could have been, only that there was more than one of them. As we were packing, we were talking again about the hoolie-hoolies and he commented that he was going to be glad to have another adult with him on this trip. Those things really spooked him!

When Lightning was around, we made light of the hoolie-hoolie monsters but as you well know, joking about something often helps to waylay fear. So - as we had been waiting on supper, we had made a few jokes about the hoolie-hoolie monsters, wondering if they would visit our camp. We commented on the fact that we didn't have the protection of the nylon walls of the tent this time, that they could walk right into our sleeping bags and try to snuggle up. Meanwhile, I also had snakes on the brain, since it was a warm weekend and great weather for snakes to get out and stretch their coils - I just hoped they didn't want to cuddle too. Not sure if that ever occurred to the fellas, but it did to me, and my only comfort was the fact that all three of us snore when we camp, so I figured snakes, who are normally timid anyway, would be intimidated by the vibrations. In fact, I figured that would be our defense against almost anything that roamed in the night, hopefully even the hoolie-hoolies.

So there we sat, and the rustlings began. I flipped on my headlamp just in time to see a shadow dart out of view. Fearless Fox was closer to the woods, so he flipped his light on and he barely caught what appeared to be a small animal. Everything sounds big as it shuffles through leaves, but we knew for sure this was a small something. It came up on Lightning's side of the fire, so he turned on his headlamp and caught it - an armadillo. Lightning growled at it and it waddled off, seemingly apologetic for being intrusive. Soon we heard another rustling and we almost immediately saw a much bigger armadillo - MUCH bigger. This was most definitely a Texas armadillo, just based on his size. I growled at it and it faded off into the blackness, but it didn't seem to have the same regret for intruding on our camp. We heard him circle behind us and come up on the other side, so Lightning growled at him and again he faded. He hung around the outskirts for a little while though, as though trying to figure out how to get past our guard dogs. We finally decided he must smell our trail mix, so we retrieved it from a few feet away from us and put it between us.

I pulled out Ryan's Florida Trail Adventures and began to read them out loud (if you don't know what I'm talking about, go here): http://www.floridatrail2008.com/

I had known that Fearless Fox would enjoy hearing of Ryan's hiking stories, although he resisted reading them for a long time (that whole "letterboxers are freaks" phobia thing he has going on). I figured this trip was a good time to have story time and Ryan's current trip would be good fodder. Sure enough, we were all laughing steadily at Ryan's funny adventures and FF had a hard time believing Ryan could be a letterboxer. I read until I was hoarse, but they wouldn't let me stop. Lightning went to bed and still I read. He started snoring (hereafter thought of as hoolie-hoolie defense) and still I read. Finally, finally somewhere around 11 p.m. - after hoolie-hoolie hour if the timing of the previous campout were accurate - Fearless Fox and I decided to filter some water and bottle it and leave it in the stream to cool, hoist our remaining food up in a bear bag and finally turn in. I fell asleep while he was asking me something about the story. Who knows what I told him.

I woke up several times during the night and would immediately listen to see if I had been awakened by hoolie-hoolieing, was comforted by the sounds of snoring around me, and went immediately back to sleep. I'm sure Fearless Fox did the same. I'm also very sure Lightning never woke up once - and the evidence is in the fact that his face was covered in mosquito bites, which had attacked fiercely in the early morning. About 3 a.m. we both awakened to raindrops on our foreheads and we jumped up and secured what little was exposed and vulnerable to the rain. We shifted ourselves around to stay dry against the angle of the rain, and then went back to sleep and hoped for the best. The rain had quit by the time we finished situating ourselves and it never started again. The tarps had been a good gamble.

We finally awakened for the day around 8:30 a.m., glad to see we had not been hoolie-hoolied during the night. I proceeded to hop up, only to find that my body wasn't into hopping. I creaked my way upright, stretched and popped a few times and put away my bedding. I had not really thought about it the night before, but we had done a good job of taking out what we needed, using it, cleaning it and putting it away. What this meant was that there was very little necessary to do to break camp - yet another thing I love about backpacking! As I got ready to put a few things in my backpack, I realized my load had lightened considerably, probably most notably thanks to the potatoes being gone. I had also reduced the bulk by getting rid of two of the three boxes. My bag was light and roomy, and after moving around a bit, I felt up to the challenge of taking some weight off of one of them. FF had also been carrying food, so only snacks remained of that and he was a lot lighter too. I grabbed a few things and shoved them in my bag, this time packing my bag carefully to get things right. After eating a lazy breakfast of oatmeal and hot chocolate and reading a few episodes of Ryan's adventures, we were ready to go. I put a fresh pair of wool socks on, tied on my shoes being careful to get my shoelaces right, stood up, and hiked up my bag - it HAD to be at least 20 pounds now, if not a shade more! I didn't say anything though and stepped out with them somewhere around noon.

Now we were still going up the same hill we had been going up when we stopped the day before, and it had not gotten any easier! In fact, I was suprised that being fresher didn't make a difference in how it "felt" - the only thing I could figure was that the extra weight was making up for the tired part of the day before. I had almost decided I was going to have to give some weight back to them when we finally topped the hill and suddenly I felt in balance. I delayed saying anything to see if I could handle it, and I did.

Within 20 minutes, we hit the first road and crossed it. As we were approaching it, we saw a bucket hanging from a tree on the other side. I thought it must have been someone's food stash, although hikers usually hide their food a little off the trailhead and certainly not right on a road. As usual, I was bringing up the rear so FF and Lightning were on the bucket first. They opened it to see what it was and it was a geocache - and NOT any of the ones I had programmed in to my GPS. This was a mystery. The only thing I could figure out was that it might have been the last cache in a multi-cache that began about a mile away. The cache was soaking wet and I regretted that I didn't have a logbook to put into it to replace the soaked one. The trades all looked pretty gnarly, but there was a travel bug (hitchhiker to us) so I took it because I knew I could move it along pretty quickly.

We proceeded along the trail - nice flat trail for a change, but picturesque. Lightning was very tired and his wrist hurt and he was a little grumpy - as many of you know, NOT his normal temperament. We had debated quitting at the next road and letting Fearless Fox run ahead to get the truck while Lightning and I stayed with the gear, but I really didn't care to do that. Lightning suggested we drop our packs and hide them and all walk together to get the truck, which was a better idea.

I have to admit I wasn't feeling as chipper the second day as I was the first, but somewhere between the first road and the second, I became philosophical. What was standing between me and successfully completing this trail? Nothing but my attitude and will power! I realized I really WANTED to finish it, and there was nothing physically wrong with me but a little fatigue (I had not slept all that well while guarding my family from the hoolie-hoolies), a slight pain in the knee that is supposed to give me trouble (the one without an ACL, the one that has been scoped twice - it SHOULD complain!), and a bit of heat from a hamstring I pulled a few weeks ago. I've lived with the knee pain for 12+ years, the hamstring was best served by exercise, and the fatigue would make me sleep good. Yes, my feet were starting to hurt already, but after I adjusted my thinking, even they felt better. It was a journey. I could rise about the difficulty of it and enjoy the trip - the scenery was beautiful. It WAS a little warm, but it wasn't August after all! By that time I was inclined to vote to continue, packs and all, to the truck. And then Lightning sat down and refused to go any further...

Fearless Fox was stumped - Lightning had never done anything like that before. He knew that once you start, you have to finish. It was interesting watching the two of them because if Lightning had done it at home, Fearless Fox would've shifted into stern dad mode, shot a few sharp words toward Lightning and made him move, but this was different. FF finally realized the best thing to do was to sit down, have a little water, have another candy bar, and listen to Ryan's Adventures for a little while. After a nice relaxing rest and a good pep talk, Lightning knew it was time to move on.

We all hiked up our packs and headed off and almost immediately came to the second of the three roads! We didn't stop there to talk again about leaving the gear, hoping it would be forgotten. We came quickly to a small lake and decided to plant the last box there. It was lovely really and the perfect place for the third box. About 4.5 miles from the trailhead we had entered on. While we stopped to plant it, Lightning realized we had hoodwinked him and brought up the idea of stashing our backpacks so we could quick time it to the truck.

Realizing he had really stretched himself on this trip and he was still close to his breaking point, we backtracked a bit and hid their packs, opting to keep mine since it had snacks and water. Fearless Fox and I decided we would take turns carrying mine, so I went with it for the next half mile or so. He volunteered at that point so I dropped it so he could take it. When he hoisted it, he was stunned at how heavy I had packed it (he thinks it was closer to 25 lbs) and it threw him off balance a bit, and in the meantime he smacked Lightning in the mouth with the cup that was hanging from the back. This was about too much for Lightning, who broke into honest tears as he skinned back his lip to show a bloodied tooth and lip - OUCH! Resigned to ending the trip with a strained wrist, smashed fingers, a face full of mosquito bites that made him look like puberty had hit over the weekend, and finally a fat lip, Lightning trudged on looking dejected from behind. Poor guy - he is usually such a trooper and this just wasn't his trip.

We continued along, stopping often to rest. I offered to take the pack back periodically but FF kept it and I led the way. He calculated a mile or so to go, but I couldn't figure how he got that since I had a mental picture of how the roads lay. Still though, I figured I had a bad case of wishful thinking and went with his estimate. Finally, after examining hundreds of mushrooms and interesting tree growths and lots of cool stuff on and near the trail, I glanced up and thought I could see the truck in the far off distance. I dared not to say a word, but every time I glanced up, I knew it sure looked like our truck! I had been fooled a couple of times on the trail by downed trees that lay so they looked like roads ahead, so I kept going until I had no doubt what I saw. I pointed it out and we were all ecstatic to be at the end of the hike - success!

So in the end, what did we get out of it? I planted three new boxes, tried to find two caches unsuccessfully, found two caches without trying, fended off marauding hoolie-hoolies, knocked out a third of a breathtaking walk, and proved to myself and my fellas that I CAN backpack with them. Lightning will almost certainly have regained his sense of humor and will be able to tell the story with a smile (even if a lopsided smile!).

When the question comes up about memorable planting trips, this will have to rank up there for sure!- Barefoot Lucy"It's not about footwear, it's about philosophy"

Whoda Thought?

I went camping with our Boy Scout troop Friday night - think 30 degrees and pouring rain - with the intention of getting to go letterboxing while they were doing their Boy Scout thing. I showed up at Mission Tejas equipped with my clues, and I also took with me several coordinates because the geocaches in that park are also said to be very good.

Back to Friday, it rained and sleeted and snowed off and on all day and my co-workers would walk by my desk and ask me if I was really going camping in "this weather", to which I said "Unless it gets called off." (Meanwhile, chanting - Please call it off, Please call it off). I got off work and it was still raining and sleeting and Fearless Fox had already called the Scoutmaster to see if we were still going. Yep. Still going. "The boys NEED a cold weather campout." Need is a strong word.

So Fearless Fox loaded his truck up and went on down to Mission Tejas to start a fire and Lightning and I met the troop at the church that sponsors them. As I stood there listening to the Assistant Scoutmaster repeatedly tell (and think grinchlike grin here) calling parents "Yes, we are still going. The boys NEED a cold weather campout.", I tried to remember if I had ever camped in cold AND raining conditions. There WAS the Brazos Bend gathering, very wet but not terribly cold. There was the summer I spent camping in Canada and the Northwest, and that got down into the 30's, but I don't remember it raining that summer. And then camping in the Florida Everglades for nearly three weeks - it rained every day, but again, it wasn't cold. There was the one and only girl scout campout I ever went on when it started raining after we got set up and I had to show the other girls (newbie campers that they were) how you should NOT touch the sides of the tent, so we all touched the sides of the tent and the tent flooded from the inside out, but that was relatively warm too - just horribly messy. I just don't remember putting cold AND wet together on a campout, but maybe NacTrailCat can remember something along those lines from my growing up years. So anyway, after 2/3 of the expected participants cancelled at parental insistence, I started to wonder if I was being a good parent by not also keeping my son home. SJZ called me one last time to say "Are y'all really going camping?" to which I replied "The only way to have an adventure is to go on an adventure" - I only wished I felt so cavalier. I just felt the impending cold and wet feeling starting to seep in before we ever got a start.


We had so many cancellations that we didn't have to haul a trailer and there was even room for me and my gear on the van, so I parked the car, grabbed my gear and piled into the van, settling into the front seat next to the Scoutmaster and made up my mind to make the best of things. We spent the next hour tring to ignore the rain, talking about scouting, and me generally picking his brain as I like to do whenever I have a Scoutmaster held captive.

We got to camp and thanks to the dismal weather it got much darker even earlier than usual, so we set camp up in the drenching dark. Thankfully, Fearless Fox had arrived and gotten a fire blazing and it was going well enough that it could withstand the waves of heavier rain, so we alternated setting up camp and warming up by the fire, until finally the kitchen was in place, the tents were erected, and everything was settled.

Lightning's tentmate was one of the cancellors, so he wound up with a tent by himself. I was a little worried about that because his last rainy camping experience was with me at the Brazos Bend gathering and he still doesn't speak fondly of that occasion, so I wondered how he would fare by himself on a rainy night. And I wondered if he would stay warm without a tentmate to help warm the tent. He never asked to bunk in with Fearless Fox and me, so we didn't offer either.

Once camp was set, we all gathered around the fire looking at each other. It's really hard to have a fun energetic campfire program when it's raining and cold, and it's hard to pretend you are enjoying sitting around the fire swapping stories when it's raining and cold too. Finally I suggested we go on a night geocache someone had recommended to me, so we had a few takers. We all got our navigation gear together, I got extra batteries and set my GPS. The Scoutmaster and I jumped back in the front seat of the van and headed out - I navigated while he drove. We finally got to the jumping off point for the cache and parked on not so firm ground, but we figured we had enough bodies that we could get ourselves out if we had to. We jumped out and set our flashlights into action because the idea was that we had to find the reflective paint that couldn't be seen during the day, thus finding the path that would lead us to the cache that would give us the coords to the next leg of the cache. Funny thing about rain on trees is that everything reflects! After roaming around for twenty minutes, spreading out and scouring the woods for what we hoped would be the magical path, we decided there was just too much reflection and none of it seemed distinctive enough to warrant calling it a path, so we bailed right back into the nice white church van and headed back to camp. We were gone a total of almost an hour, and by the time we got back Fearless Fox had orchestrated the erection of a tarp shelter next to the fire, so that we could all gather around the fire and rotate, taking turns being dry but cold for a bit under the tarp, then warm but wet for a bit by the fire, then cold and wet for a bit as we took our turns on the dark side of the fire that wasn't under the tarp. Finally, one by one we felt warm and dry enough to head to our tents and settle in. Being warm natured and a little claustrophobic, I never thought I would like a zero degree sleeping bag with a head cover, but I gotta say - it felt pretty darned good Friday night!


As I was drifting off to sleep, the nagging thought that I had been shoving back into the recesses of my mind came into full vision - what if this DOESN'T let up and I don't get to go letterboxing, which was the whole reason I came on this trip anyway???

But alas, Saturday morning dawned and it was absolutely perfect - cold, mind you, but sunny and beautifully crisp and clean feeling. I thought I was being funny when I went to join the guys already at the campfire with my wild morning hair and quipped "I don't suppose any of you have an extra scrunchy, do you?". Two of the men headed to their trucks and came back with scrunchies. Never underestimate Boy Scouts and their leaders, especially the ones that have sisters and daughters.

When you have to wait on Boy Scouts to cook your breakfast, you need to be patient, at least in our troop. I'm almost always up before them, but the name of the game with Boy Scouts is that they do everything and leaders should not do anything. Different than Cub Scouts, where I know that on a campout once I get up I'm going to be working until I go to bed again, so I may as well jump in and start breakfast right away. Consequently, I found myself standing around for awhile and finally I decided I could at least orient myself to the park. Although I've been to Mission Tejas many times, I've never been in a position of having to walk to wherever I wanted to be, so I wanted to make sure I knew the shortest route to anywhere. The state park maps are okay, but a walking view is much better. Between walking the main loop before breakfast and there not being leaves on the trees, I felt like I had suddenly turned the key and realized how close some things are to each other. Amazing! While out, I noted in my mind where I would have to be to find each box, and I also took my GPS along and roughly located where the various caches were. I was ready - all except breakfast.


I headed back to camp to find that dutch ovens were firing up and eggs were being cracked. It was starting to look like we might have breakfast before noon, er, I mean nine. They had brought far more food than we needed because there were supposed to be three times more people on the campout than there were. I got a kick out of the boys debating exactly how much of everything to cook because they normally cook it all. They are very exact in how much to allot to each person and how much to buy and they are not very wasteful (after all, Thrifty is the 9th point of the scout law), so when suddenly they had all that food it threw them for a loop. It's sorely tempting to jump in the middle of such debates and sort them out quickly, so it's hard sometimes for me to stand quietly aside and let them reach their own conclusions which, I'm glad to say, are usually the sames ones a sane adult would come to. Thankfully, we had our sausage patties crumbled into tortillas instead of served up like hamburgers...

Right after breakfast I sat down with my LB book one more time before setting out. The boys were getting ready to work on advancement but Fearless Fox wanted to play one quick round of Pteredactyl before they got started, so I jumped up and played Pteredactyl with them, then headed out to go boxing/caching. Now I had not gone far from the campsite when I realized that when boxing in the cold, it is very important how you arrange your clothes. I had two shirts and two pairs of pants on, but I had put the pair of pants with the pockets on underneath the other pair, so every time I went to put something in my pocket, I had to reach into the waistband of my top pair and had to be very careful to hit the pocket of the under pair, or everything would go straight to the ground. This proved to be a problem eventually.

So anyway, all of this is to set the stage for my letterboxing journey.

I walked toward the pond where there were rumored to be some boxes. After sleeping on the cold hard ground, I was feeling a little stove up, so I deliberately stretched out my step and pulled myself up as tall as I could. I started feeling better right away, so I started sucking in that glorious winter air. Perfect. Just perfect. It really was. My legs and back were stretched and my lungs were stretched and I felt GOOD!


I got to the pond area and once again coordinated my clues (I do much better if I can get myself into close proximity and then visualize where the clues are sending me) and I set off with the intent of first checking on Baby Bear's box. Unfortunately, I got so caught up in the view of the pond that I walked right by it, but I knew I could quickly check it on my way back around the loop. So off I went in the direction of LSQ's Indian Trails box.

Now you would think that as much time as I've spent in Mission Tejas, I would know it very well by now, but somehow it felt like a new park. Maybe I've just never been there in the dead of winter - I don't know, but I got really caught up in the views. This time though, I remembered to stop and look for the box. I really do have an aversion to sticking my hand into a blind hole, even in the wintertime when I know there should be no cold-blooded creatures to greet me, so I traipsed myself down the incline to look in to where my hand was going to go. I pulled my glove on just in case, removed the cover and there was the box, just as planned. There wasn't a soul to be seen or heard, so I thought I would just return and sit in the path to stamp in, but as I was scurrying back up I slid back down - I had already forgotten the torrential rains I guess, and the ground off the trail was slick. So I rolled around a bit in the wet leaves, got slightly damp, but no big deal. I tried again and made it, logged in, and went to return it. This time I slid down the hill almost to the water, and the stuff that was supposedly in my pocket skittered on down between my two pairs of pants to the water and just as I realized what was happening I saw my GPS bob under and return to the top along with my water bottle. Everything else was somewhat disposable (especially since it sank like lead weights), but I really did need to retrieve my GPS and my water. In summer, the brackish tones of the pond at MTSP are charming in a green sort of way, but in the winter, they are just intensely green. I wasn't real excited about sticking my hand into that green water, which I was pretty sure was also very COLD water, but I didn't seem to have a choice. I really couldn't tell where the edge of the water began (leaves and all, you know), but I knew I had to get close to the water to reach out and get my GPS. Knowing my own luck, I fully expected to find myself stretching out to get the stupid thing, only to fall full out on my side in the cold green water. I got close enough about the time I felt my toes feeling squishy for the second time in 24 hours, but I was able to get my GPS without any further incident. I was feeling especially pleased with myself and got back to the trail and gathered my stuff up to head out, especially in a hurry because the area was really starting to smell like a fresh pile of scat. Ewwwww...


So off I went in the direction of the next box, which I felt would be quite a way along the trail. I stopped briefly to get a drink of water, and I realized the smell wasn't any better. I went to wipe the top of my water bottle off on my shirt, only to find WHY the smell wasn't any better. Big ewwww....somehow I had managed to get it on BOTH shirts, and it was on my top pair of pants too. It wasn't a fresh pile of scat I was smelling, it was a newly reopened one - by me. In one of my two slides down the hill.

Well I was about as far from fresh water as I could've been, so I resolved to use the green water to at least clean up a little bit. I managed to rinse the scat out of my shirts and get most of it off my pants, but at that point I was really wet again. I shed the top shirt and carried it and tried not to breathe too deeply, and I tried to forget I was cold. I reminded myself that I had survived cold, wet, and miserable the night before with some modicum of my sense of humor, and I could certain do it in the daylight too.

I came to the decision-making trail split - do I hightail it back to fresh water and fresh clothes, or do I keep letterboxing? I gave it a minute or two of thought, but I finally opted to box on. I mean really, by then I had sort of gotten used to the smell and my skin was numbing and I didn't expect to run into anyone I knew on the trail. It wasn't like Walmart where you run into everyone you know if you don't put on makeup and good clothes before you go. This was the stinking woods, emphasis on stinking in my case!

So on I went - boxing on. I reached the area where the next boxes were to be and I began working the clues with no luck. I decided I had gone through so much to get there that I wasn't going to give up easily. I tried the clues every which way I could, to no avail. Well I say that, but I do think I know the general area where one was - squarely in the middle of a blocked off area where a tree had fallen across a bridge. Eventually I had to concede that I wasn't going to find those boxes, and I took myself back to the trailhead.


By this time, I knew it was approaching lunchtime so I decided to head back to the scout site to eat, but I realized I had a problem. I looked like a bedraggled rat. And smelled like a bedraggled dead rat. Somehow it finally occurred to me that I was right at a water faucet, so I could rinse all my clothes one piece at a time and wring them out, then leave off one pair of pants and one shirt and return to camp. As a bonus, I had also already loaded my camping backpack into the truck, so I could arrange the vehicle doors to create a dressing room at camp and change into clean dry clothes. This I did and no one in camp was the wiser to my experience as they only first noticed I was back in camp when I bopped in with a light step, carrying my boots and walking in my wool socks. That struck them as odd, but they were busy so they never thought again about it. That is, until a half hour later or so when Fearless Fox got me alone and said "Okay. What happened to you?" I don't know if he noticed I wasn't wearing the same clothes as when I left, or if my silent re-entry tipped him off or what, but he had figured it out. When I told him what had happened, I thought he would never stop laughing at me!

We ate lunch and started packing to head home. I ran out of time to hunt the other boxes, and quite frankly, after all of that, I ran out of energy too. I have never been so happy to see my own shower as I was Saturday.

The kicker of the story is - a day or so later I got an email from Jim (Palestine) and he and his crew had been in Mission Tejas the same day. Boy, am I ever glad I didn't run into him!

So anyway, I headed to Mission Tejas with the intent to reach 300+ and to get seven boxes and several caches. I wound up getting my 299th - and it was a good one - LSQ's boxes always are! But I think I had as satisfying and enjoyable a weekend (even the miserable stuff was pretty fun) finding that one little box as I could've had if I had found every box there (not that I wouldn't have had a great time finding them all!). And I promise you - I will always remember that day when I see Indian Trails in my logbook. Thank you, LSQ, for the experience! Wish you'da been there so I could've shared the wealth...(just kidding) (well not really) (well yeah, I wouldn't wish some of that on anyone) (well, but nahhhh...just kidding) (sort of).

-- Barefoot Lucy"It's not about footwear, it's about philosophy"

Patches are here again

Fresh order of patches available. 2" patch - $2 each.

Good Manners Gone?

As always, the debate goes on on the Big List, but this time it has even bled over to Newboxers! Apparently someone has stolen the Store of Good Manners. Well I have one question - what IS the Store of Good Manners? And why would someone steal it? I mean, if someone were inclined to steal something, why would that particularly rude person see fit to steal the Store of Good Manners?

So anyway, if you have the Store of Good Manners, please return it so we can move along, okay?

Running again with Texas Flutterbye

Once again, I teamed with my sis-in-law Texas Flutterbye to make a run through some boxes. Our husbands, who are brothers, decided they wanted to go biking today. I tried in vain to get them to decide in advance where they would be biking, but eventually gave up and mapped us out a trip to clean up a few remaining boxes in areas we had already boxed. Lightning opted for the bike excursion - which turned out to be around White Rock Lake. I woulda liked to have boxed around there, but oh well!

We headed up toward Corsicana last night and arrived at their house just in time for dinner and a movie on the big screen. The guys got tired of the movie and headed to Walmart, Gander Mountain, and stores unknown. TFB and I opted to stay at the house and get our bags ready to go today and to exchange HH's and a postal and so forth, and to compare logbooks to see what we each didn't have yet. Finally, about midnight we turned in, after Lightning got himself a new bike and the guys had themselves a plan for the day. Our niece graciously gave up her bed, and we wound up snoozing wayyy too late, especially given that daylight savings time had occurred overnight. We all got going about the crack of 9, heading out our separate ways.
Our first order of business was to grab Blue Butterfly's box in Corsicana. Nice find, but it's seen a lot of visitors in its short life! We contemplated how many hundreds of people must visit that very park without even a clue about the box hidden right under their noses!

On to Ennis, we found our way to Bluebonnet Park and hit the trail to find Lucy Locket's Pinky and the Brain. This was a cool set of two in a nice park. I'm not sure exactly why, but we had a long discussion there about renaissance faires. Hmmm? No idea. But we did. Followed by stopping to watch some kids feeding funyons to a huge school of bream. We decided that fishermen who spend big bucks on bait just don't have a clue - clearly funyons were the food of choice among discerning fishes! Happy to have our newfound insight, we stopped by where a couple of fishermen had their tackle boxes spread out and were seriously casting their lines out for fish. We told them "Funyons". It has to be funyons. They didn't get it. Too bad.

On our way out to Bardwell Lake, I was telling her GG's story about almost not being allowed in to Waxahachie Creek Park to leave us clues to his first box. She couldn't believe it, until we got to the gate and pulled up to the window and I, in my most bored voice said "We want to come in and hike." WELL - the lady asked WHERE we intended to hike, to which I stuttered a bit, not remembering specifically the name of the trail. She proceeded to tell me the two trails and I guessed the wrong one and she began to explain to me that we could get lost on that trail and it was quite long and that if we got lost we would have to ask a horseman, and there weren't any documented horses on the trail at the moment (and I SOOOO wanted to ask her if they deport undocumented horses, but I decided not to open that can of worms). FB was sitting in the passenger's seat mumbling to herself, and getting steadily louder as the conversation continued, so I quickly waffled and told the woman the other trail, and she was satisifed that we wouldn't be in over our heads and let us go on in, explaining to us that we needed to go LEFT. I pulled away from the window and went right, wanting to go check first on something else there at the park before going for Silver Eagle and Baby Bear's boxes. For the rest of our time there, I felt certain I would see a ranger truck pulling up beside me with the little lady at the wheel, yelling "See? You're lost already! I said LEFT - go LEFT!" But she either didn't catch up with us or didn't care as much as it originally seemed, because once in we were free to roam as we saw fit. With her direction, we found our way to the correct trails and proceeded to find Silver Eagle's Waxahachie Wikiup and Baby Bear's Sally. We once had to pretend we were sketching, but we had seen the other folks at the trailhead taking pictures of the trash cans and other weird things, so we weren't too worried about them because it sure seemed as though they were covering up what they were really there for too. It did occur to me to wonder if the lady knew they were at the equestrian trail instead of the short trail, but I decided not to ask. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to bring the final answer to Scarlet Pimpernel, so all I could do was try to remember the directions to that one - which I was unsuccessful at. It still lies out there for me to get.

After leaving there, we decided to bee line over to Terrell, where we got Stargazer's box, Nana's Hummingbird. That was a lovely little box and it had to be the most organized cemetery I've ever been to. I really do want to get out and find more of her boxes. Nice.

We checked in with the guys to see where they were, and it sounded as though we would hit the driveway about the same time as them if we were to find two more boxes before heading back to FB's house.

We began our homeward turn and made it to Mabank, where we found Adams Trails' new (first?) box, Boxing is a Circus, and went on to Seven Points where we got Have Fun Matte. It's always fun to go find someone's first plants, but not surprisingly - we weren't the FIRST finders!

We were surprised to find ourselves back home before the fellas, so we settled in and had a couple of beers while we waited for them. My bro-in-law called ahead wanting some 'tain't cream, so rather than hanging out and finding out what that was, I loaded my fellows in the car and we headed back home for the weekend.

We took a cross-country route home via Palestine, which isn't exactly the shortest route, but it sure was the prettiest! Somehow or another, we stumbled across a place I had heard of but never visited before - the Gus Engeling Wildlife Management Area. Here's the link for it - it is a great place to visit and a very nice educational center:

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/hunt/wma/find_a_wma/list/?id=10

Fortunately, I had a stamp and a container in my bag, so at Fearless Fox's suggestion, I planted a box there. Look for the posting in the next day or two!

Poor Marley

Marley really wants to go to the gathering with me. He's really bummed he can't. In fact, he told his mother he would just croak if he couldn't go. Maybe he exaggerates...

Anyway, I told him I would take him if she would just let him go, but she won't so I can't. But I did tell him I would make it up to him - somehow!

Maybe I can come up with an idea between now and then - if you want to help poor Marley, ask me at the gathering how YOU can help!

Christmas Eve Letterboxing

Somehow or another, we managed to wrap up all our Christmas running about yesterday, so we had today unexpectedly to ourselves. How nice! I convinced Fearless Fox and Lightning to accompany me on a close range letterboxing run to find JB Kokopelli's 7 Dwarves series.

I awoke a couple of times in the very early morning to the sound of rain. I had let the dog in about midnight last night because it was getting cold, so as I snuggled deeper into the quilts I knew it was not just raining but cold and raining! I pondered whether my compadres would notice the cold and the rain before I got them far enough from home that they would be my hostages for the day. FF, thinking the day was shot, planned to go up to his office and get a couple things done before next week. I told him I was going letterboxing anyway. He eyed me skeptically and I could sense that he was considering whether he could get me far enough from home that I would be his hostage for the day. Since I was already dressed down to socks and had my shoes in my hand, he realized he was far behind the game and that it would be best if he gave in, which he graciously did. He's a wise man. Lightning, bless his 10 year old heart, learned long ago that it is useless to protest over a few raindrops.

We left the house with clues in hand and headed first to New Summerfield with Fearless Fox behind the wheel. I had worked out my own plan to make a circuit from New Summerfield to Rusk and back to Jacksonville in a somewhat efficient manner. All I really needed him to do was drive and follow my directions. I'm sure many of you are now laughing hysterically at that idea - and rightly so. FF and I once took dance lessons and we did terribly because we couldn't agree on who was going to lead (he insists even still that leading is the man's job, to which I say "This is the 21st century and we should at least flip a coin to see who will lead!"). Well that same issue kicked in for this little endeavor. As I would describe to him where we were going next, he would say "Oh yeah, Blackjack. We can get there THIS way." To which I would say "The clues say nothing about Blackjack. This is how we need to go." Now when he is around, there is no need for a GPS or a compass or anything. Aside from having his own personal onboard compass, he's driven every backroad in Cherokee County countless times from his earliest driving experience. I swear - he knows every landmark in our county, right down to how many cows should be in the field where we are supposed to turn. He can even tell you how long ago they paved some of these roads! I finally gave in and left the navigation to him as well, and we were happier for it. Especially since there are times when he goes on one of my jaunts when he checks out entirely and makes me tell him every last little turn. Now THAT is a pain in the ...ANYWAY.

We got to Blackjack (he was right) and promptly found the cemetery. Got out and began our search for the box. Oops. No prob - I spotted it from several feet away. And when I got to it, the lid was partially off it. And when I opened it? The baggie inside was slit down the side. And don't forget - it was raining. This little series has been found numerous times in its short life, the most recent couple of finds being this week. Thankfully the logbook had not been exposed to the elements too long, and we got to it before the rain could fill the box. My first thought was - "this is going to be a long day". We took the box back to the car and dried it out and I replaced the baggie with the only one I had (where have all my baggies gone anyway???). It was a cool little cemetery, very secluded.

Off we went then, to the next box. By then I had told him my thoughts about our route for the day and he decided to change it up (of course). He felt we could get to a couple of them without going down the same road twice (he hates that). He left me in the car to regroup then, and ran into the store to get us all some juice. When he returned, I told him I didn't think his way would work because we didn't have road numbers for the next two boxes, only visual clues. He agreed and off we went. Somewhere along the way, we took a sidetrip (remember, I am NOTORIOUS for getting sidetracked!) and wound up going cross-country to get back to the route. As we were getting ready to make a turn to get back on track, we passed a church with a cemetery and I laughingly suggested we slow down to make sure it wasn't one of the two we were looking for. We did and it was! Once again, FF's astounding navigation put us right where we needed to be. We quickly collected Sleepy and I promptly stamped him in sideways, so he now sleeps standing up in MY logbook. Thankfully, Sleepy was well-hidden and sealed up tight.

We headed on down to the next box which was on the same road, only to get to the very end of the road with no sign of it. We quickly realized what we had done wrong and turned and went back to get it. We got to the OTHER end of the road and STILL hadn't come across it. By then, I was a little cross with JBK's clearly confused directions - why, she had even mixed up clues and swapped the cemetery names! I read the clues to FF and he suddenly started thinking it made sense, so I read them to him again - more loudly - because he was now definitely confused and it must've been because he couldn't hear me when I read them the first time. He started ignoring me and began driving, and before too long we were pulling up to the very cemetery that had evaded us. He then took a moment to very patiently explain to me that the road we were on intersected with the main road not once, but twice, and if we had taken the approach described in JBK's clues, we would've hit the right intersection first and been fine. As it was, our approach was cross-country, so we came to the second intersection without realizing it wasn't the right one. Suddenly I realized I had maligned JBK unnecessarily and I had been wrong all along. In soccer, we call this a coaching moment - a point where a player has blundered badly enough that they are finally willing to stop and listen to the coach, and at that moment they are very coachable. It's been a long time since I've made that same mistake, but I found myself once again coachable. I'm sorry, JBK, for doubting you!
We found ourselves at an amazing little cemetery - amazing in that it is so neglected and overgrown that you immediately get a sense of injustice to the souls residing there. I'm not one who gets needlessly sentimental about the dead, but it does seem that those who came before us deserve a little respect by virtue of being a part of our history.

Off we went again, this time on in to Rusk. Again, a nice little tour through an interesting cemetery.

We continued on, finding the fourth and fifth boxes, and by now FF was waxing complimentary. He normally refrains from any sort of critiquing when we go letterboxing. He's a true LSS and he goes because Lightning and I are entertained by it and because he enjoys hiking. However, from the first cemetery he began walking through them and noting graves of people who were alive at certain junctures in history. When he does this, he really brings a sense of perspective and life to the personal history in each cemetery and how it relates to our national and state history. By the fourth cemetery, he was very impressed with JBK's selection of sites and even of her choices of specific hiding spots. Up until then, he had returned to the car with me each time to help me with stamping in, but on the fifth and subsequent cemeteries, he was sending Lightning back with me so he could stay and look at headstones. I would then return the box to its hiding place, and return to the car where he was reading - except that on the last few, I would find myself back at the car and waiting on him.

We found a new HH in Doc's box. It is Snowshoe Dog '06, by Kat from Moab, UT. I spent a few days in Moab when I was 15. Cool. I'll send it on its way soon, but this is a pretty neat little HH - here's hoping y'all get to see it!

We had saved Dopey to be the last box - for one reason, it was the closest to home, but mainly because it was the box placed at Joan's (the J of JB Kokopelli) graveside. We felt it should be last, because it was here that our personal tribute to her would be completed. It was a lovely hiding place, and we had an opportunity to not only say hello to Joan, but to visit the graves of several young friends who have passed away in recent years.

We had such a good time today, Fearless Fox is now thinking of recarving his stamp and is ready to go on our outing scheduled for January 2nd. Lightning learned a new game that I hope he forgets very soon - he figured out that cedar trees can be great fun in the rain. Because of the shape of the leaves, water is trapped in cedar. Cedars also have low slung and flexible branches, so that if you flick the branch, you can make it rain. The first time this happened, he did it accidentally while I was retrieving a box, and I got soaked. He thought this was hilariously funny so he spent the rest of the day trying to catch us. We had managed to avoid his downpours, until the end of the day when I had momentarily forgotten and found myself under a huge cedar and got a torrential drench. I thought he and FF would both die laughing, which would have been appropriate since we were in a cemetery. I once again proved to my people that rain does NOT preclude letterboxing - it just calls for more creativity.

I would like to publicly thank Bindi (the B of JB Kokopelli) for placing this series. Walking through her Tribute to Joan was a great way to spend Christmas Eve, and most especially since FF enjoyed it so much and almost seemed disappointed that our letterboxing day was done. It was a great series - excellent stamps, excellent locations, and excellent clues. It reminded me that we letterboxers leave a legacy every time we plant a box, and that our legacy can offer enjoyment to other boxers if we leave them tended and protected.