Our very first letterbox hunt.  It was a gorgeous, mild Sunday morning.  We had our newly-carved personal stamp.  We had our stamp pad (dye-based, since that's what the writer of the Letterboxing LbNA FAQ recommended).  Since we couldn't find just the right unlined journal to use as our log, we opted for blank index cards instead.  And we had our compass.

We headed out early (okay, early for us, which was about 10 in the morning), complete with a picnic lunch to dine on.  The park wasn't very busy when we got there, just a few other souls enjoying the break from Cleveland's normal winter weather.  We opted to eat lunch first, then explored the castle.  Deedle had his camera and took several photos.  We even found someone to take a photo of us together.  

It was now time to start the hunt.  We unfolded our clue sheet and walked to the starting point.  

What We've Learned While Letterboxing, Item 1:  Learn how to use your compass before you start out. 

In addition to not being 100% certain how to take bearings (we had briefly read some FAQ's on compass usage but didn't actually practice before heading out) we later learned that we bought the "wrong" kind of compass.  If you're just starting out, get an orienteering compass, even if it's a few bucks more than the nice, cute pocket compass sitting on the shelf right next to it.  Because we, not knowing any better at the time, bought the pocket compass, and the orienteering is just much easier to use.  (We now know how to use our pocket compass, sort of, but we're always a little unsure as to just how accurate our readings are.)

So we took what we thought was the appropriate bearing, started off on what we thought was the  appropriate trail, and our next move was to look for a lopped-off tree.  To the newbie, every tree on the trail looks like the lopped-off tree.  Ah, how we cursed these gawd-awfully vague clues as we tramped up and down the trail, finally resorting to peering into every tree with a hole in it.

We searched for at least an hour, maybe two.  We realized that we really needed to work on our subtlety skills, these two desperate people poking into trees all along the trail.  We never found the box (maybe that's a good thing, because by then the park had gotten a bit more crowded), and were convinced, in our newbie-ness, that it must be missing, because after searching every tree along that trail how could we have missed it?  Our defeat did not squelch our desire to be Letterboxers, however.  If anything, it fueled our quest to find that first letterbox.  And at least we had some really cool photos for Doodle to scrapbook.

Hindsight:  A few months later, while searching online for something else, Doodle found a trail map for the Squire's Castle picnic area, and guess what, we were on the wrong path.  Why can't parks use words instead of cutesy little photos that have nothing to do with the trail's name on their trail makers?  But, armed with the experience that only comes with searching for boxes and learning to interpret clues (and a trail map) we'll find that Squire's Castle Letterbox yet!  (Insert psychotic laughter here.) 

Postscript:  After hindsight was realized, but before we'd had a chance to revisit the locale, the Squire's Castle Letterbox placer had put a note in the clues that the box was confirmed missing.  How long it had been missing we're not sure (in other words, we don't know if the box had gone AWOL before or after our first visit).  But the box is now replanted in a new location at the park, so victory will eventually be ours!  If we can ever coordinate our schedules to get out there again….

 

Take me back!