The Moment of Truth

I knew this day was coming. It had to eventually. A few months ago I started dating someone and of course, the topic of letterboxing came up from time to time in conversations. As in:

"I will be out of town this weekend at a letterboxing event in South Carolina"
or

"I can't come over Friday, I will be at a letterboxing beer drinking gathering"
or

"Yes, I really have taken trips this year to/through (in order) South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland, South Carolina (again), North Carolina (again), Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Tennessee, Tennessee (again), Kentucky, Ohio (again), Virginia (again, though I already had found that box) and South Carolina (#3) to go letterboxing"

I tried to explain the hobby, showed her my logbook and stamp and even printed out clues to a couple boxes just across the road from where she lived but like most people, she just did not completely grasp it. The problem was, I could not easily "show her" since Artemis and I were signed up for events in Georgia, Ohio, Georgia and South Carolina over a five weekend span which just happened to coincide with when I started trying to explain all of this to her. Finally after this travel stretch, Artemis and I had a partial day trip planned with hawkeye and J-dog to go to the north Georgia mountains and get a couple boxes (including one in a corn maze) so I decided to bite the bullet and invited her to come along and see what it was all about. And she thought it sounded like fun so said she would come along.

That is GREAT!!! I thought, but then I realized she had no stamp and I simply could not drag her along "unprepared". We had already talked about the need for her to come up with a trail name and signature stamp so I knew what sort of image she wanted even if she had not decided on the name yet. OK, but I don't carve!!! Actually, I think I can carve but I am useless at getting images onto carving media. I have tried every method I have ever heard of and cannot get any sort of useful, consistent results. ie, I can get consistent BAD ones, but not ones I can use. So I did what usually do; I recruited Oread to help me get an image ready.

I told Oread what I wanted and we spent a few hours looking at pictures to see what to use. Eventually I settled on one that, while not my first choice, was within my skill level to complete before my deadline. What I mean is, there was a REALLY awesome image that I liked a lot better and think I could have done if I had a few weeks of dedicated carving time. But this was Tuesday and I had to be done by Friday night...

So fast forward a couple days. Yes, I got the stamp done in time and it turned out pretty good actually. I think I like it better than mine. Let me introduce you all to Chimega.

But remember, this was also me planning a day trip for four regular boxers and someone new. So of course I decided not to revamp the entire plan with this last minute addition to "be nice" and instead figured I might as well throw her into the deep end and see how she responded. What I mean is no driveby boxes to break her in; we started with Cabin at the Lake, a 4.5 hike in the mountains that had never been found before in the year and a half since it was planted.

I will not bore you with all the details but will say that it was a fabulous fall day to be hiking in the mountains. It was 50-something and sunny. We all were walking and talking as we climbed and climbed (and my favorite comment: at some point she said she needs to start doing inclined running at the gym, not just flat, since this was much harder than it should be for someone who runs a couple times a week). I was carrying my camera and big zoom lens in hopes of spotting black bears (which I always hope to get pictures of while in the mountains but never have yet). When we got close to "the spot", we handed Chimega the clues and waited. With a little help to get her facing the right direction (it required a compass reading since the non-boxer did not see the obvious tree), she got it and was (along with the rest of us) First Finder.



There is also an overlook trail at the box so we walked on up to see since while we were stamping, a few people came down from there and said it was worth the view. I agree, it was not too bad:



On the hike down we found a really thick grapevine on a tree and both J-dog and I climbed up the hill and did flying Tarzan swings out over the side of the hill. At the furthest point out we were probably 50-60 feet off the ground (sorry, no pictures, I was too busy playing). And it was hard to not hit the tree on the way back.

Once at the bottom, literally almost out of the woods and within sight of cars, a lady caught up with us from behind and asked us if we had seen the bears. From her description, it seems they were within sight of the box, near the overlook trail, about 10-15 minutes after we were there. DAMMIT!!! Maybe next time...