It's No Fun If It's Not Hard

As if I needed to make it harder, I often find myself boxing in the dark, or in the rain, or both, or when certain places are closed or when an event nearby makes retreating and re-planting near impossible. But these are the times when stories are made. There is no great letterboxing story when it was easy. So when it's hard, that's when it's fun. Planting boxes is also not as easy as you might think. You put a lot of time and thought into creating the box and you want to find a pace it won't get "muggled."

I'm interrupting this blog for a quick vocabulary check. Muggle is a stolen term letterboxers use to describe anyone who is not a letterboxer. When a box is muggled, that means it's stolen. Another stolen term I am working hard to make famous is squib, a non-letterboxer who goes letterboxing with letterboxers.

The first time I letterboxed in the dark I was still a fledgling letterboxer. It was near Detroit in November, at a campground that was closed for the season. I was with my letterboxing mentor and my boyfriend, who was a squib at the time, now he is Jetman. We had to park by the side of the road because the gate was closed. We had flashlights but didn't use them because we weren't sure the place wasn't being guarded. There was a light on by the shack next to the message board. We sneaked back until we were far enough we could turn on our flashlights. It started raining by the time we found the box and we had to stamp in the rain. That wasn't our last box that night though, the next one we went to led us up a dark forest hiking trail and the box itself was up a steep hill by the trail. It was raining harder and very muddy by the time we got there. I managed to scramble up to the tree and found the box, which we were very proud to have spotted in the dark with only a couple flashlights. I threw the box down and they stamped in for me then threw the box back up to me, because I was not about to come down and go back up there again, it was a miracle I didn't twist my ankle since I'm so good at doing that. We got back to the car wet, cold, and very happy.

Yes, many stories from the Wilamette Valley in Oregon will include rainy boxing conditions, but boxers around here are impervious to that, and good planters will collect desiccants from vitamin or aspirin bottles, shoe boxes, etc, and put them in letterboxes they plant outdoors. This is a trick I was ignorant to till I met another letterboxing friend from Eugene who is a master at boxing first aid.

December is one of the wetter months here in the Willamette Valley, but some of us consider it the best time to box. Yes, the weather's worse, but there are less muggles about so stealth becomes less of a concern.
Happy Winter boxing!
Mrs. Mumble

It's a Madness You Catch Like the Flu

Greetings!
So what is letterboxing and why do I want to blog about it? I will say first I am not the first or the only one to blog about letterboxing. Many letterboxers out there with a much higher profile than I, have been blogging about it for longer than I've been boxing myself. In short, it's a hobby, a madness you catch like the flu. Once you have the bug you always have it. Sometimes it'll lay dormant for a while, then sneak up on you and all the symptoms come back like an itch. It's a kid friendly hobby, great for family bonding, great for making friends especially if you just moved to a new state, and a great way to get you out and exploring your home town and surrounding areas. It'll also get you to beautiful lesser known spots you never would have known were there if someone hadn't hung a carrot there for you to find. So now that I've got you all confused by saying what it is to me, I'm going to quote the best website for the hobby (best in my opinion anyway) to give you a better description.

Letterboxing is an intriguing pastime combining artistic ability with "treasure-hunts" in parks, forests, and cities around the world. Participants seek out hidden letterboxes by cracking codes and following clues. The prize: an image from a miniature piece of art known as a rubber stamp—usually a unique, hand-carved creation. Letterboxers stamp their discoveries in a personal journal, then use their own rubber stamp, called a signature stamp, by stamping it into the logbook found with the letterbox, perhaps writing a note about the weather or their adventures in finding the letterbox.

- (www.atlasquest.com, 10/18/10)

There is another website I'm aware of that provides service for clues to letterboxers, www.letterboxing.org but I rarely go directly to this site as I find it difficult to navigate. Plus I have enjoyed the sense of social community provided by Atlas Quest (AQ). Never the less many boxers DO use both and it is still a good resource for clues that are not posted on AQ.

Letterboxers use trail names instead of their real names, especially at boxing events. If you become friends with another letterboxer they may tell you their real name, and then it becomes a challenge what you should call them when! My trail name is Mrs. Mumble and here is an image from my hand carved signature stamp.

I started boxing in November of 2008. To this day I have logged 194 letterboxes (I've found more but not all could be logged), which may sound impressive, but all the big wig letterboxers have thousands under their belts, so I'm still pretty small potatoes and I'm still learning new things. What you'll find in this blog are accounts of my adventures on the trail, lessons learned from sometimes humorous mistakes, the wonderful people I meet, and I may even share some of the art I create as I learn to carve better.

If you follow this blog I hope you will catch the madness yourself if you don't already have it.
Live, Laugh, Love
Mrs. Mumble