Letterboxing Hike

We've been having some really nice weather the past few days, which has been such a relief after the week of high 90's and high humidity that my parents brought in with them, LOL. Bob had a holiday on Friday, and since it was so beautiful, I thought it would be a good day to take a hike. I have wanted to go letterboxing for quite some time now. Letterboxing is a bit like geocaching, but you don't have to use a GPS to find the clues. You just go to the letterboxing site, click on your state, and then you can find different hikes. Each hike has all the clues listed for how to find the hidden boxes. Print them off, and you're good to go!

I picked a hike in a park not too far off with 3 hidden boxes along the same trail, which happened to be a loop. Yes, it was the perfect hike for little kids, LOL. I was the "reader of the clues", but the boys were very into looking out for whatever it was we were searching for. Nathan commented that it was fun to "have a mission" while hiking.

Here they have just found the first box. It was hidden behind a tree with 4 trunks! I never got a really good picture of the tree (and I never even looked at the leaves to identify it, I later realized--duh), but here is a picture of Caleb, Jonathan, and Anna in front of a similar 3-trunked tree.

The second box was further off the trail, and had more detailed instructions. Nathan was the first to spot the box in the hollow part of this tree. The boxes are just little Rubbermaid-type tubs with a stamp and a little journal in them. You are supposed to be carrying your own identifying stamp and little journal, so you would stamp your stamp on the journal in the box, and stamp their stamp on your book. We brought neither stamp nor journal. Oh well.

The thrid box was the trickiest. You had to find a certain bench off the trail, sit on it, and while looking across the trail, spot a tall stump with many holes. Going to that stump, you had to find a fallen log off to one side, and . . . some other clues I don't remember. Anyway, Luke was the one who correctly followed that sequence first, and he found the last box.

Everyone was even more excited to find a cute little toad right by the box! He hopped into the fallen log, where he obliged us by staying around to get his picture taken.

As we were walking back to the trail, we startled a few tiny little frogs (toads? I never got a good look at them, LOL) that hopped quickly away and hid under leaves.

So it was really fun, and I can definitely see us doing more of this. I think we will probably try geocaching as well. I know the boys would love that.