For my birthday, the family went to Cleveland, SC for a letterboxing gathering. Cleveland is in the upper part of SC above Greenville. It is very close to Table Rock State Park. It rained all day Friday. We left after the boys got out of school. We arrived in the dark and had some trouble finding the farm. Thank goodness Holly saw us driving down the road and showed us where to turn. Luckily it had stopped raining so we could set up the camper.
This picture was taken Saturday morning. It was beautiful with the fog over the mountains. A couple of other letterboxers had also arrived Friday night. After breakfast, we decided to letterbox at the farm first. There were about 30 letterboxes on the farm. So Buttercup, Johnny Quest, Hawkeye, JDog, The High Rollers and our family (Box Hunters) started hunting letterboxes. There were lots of letterboxes planted by x marks the spot. His letterboxes look like ordinary things but have letterboxes hidden inside. They were lots of fun to find. One of the clues was look for something unusual. Hunter found this one. It was near the stream. Holly was in the stream planting letterboxes for the night boxing that night. The stream was lower than the ground so Hunter did not see her. Hunter was asking Chris if he should look inside. As he was reaching for it, Holly yelled "Don't touch that!" and scared Hunter. Hunter ran all the way back to the house with the letterbox. He was completely out of breath and all he could tell me was the lady who owns the farm was in the creek. Later Holly filled me in on the whole story. It was pretty funny.
Hunter riding a horse
Holly also let everyone ride her horses. This was a special treat for the boys.
Jordan on his 1st horse ride
Jordan rode a horse for the first time this weekend. He loved it!
Jordan riding a horse
He looks so natural on a horse.
After we finished boxing at the farm, Holly fed us again. Then we decided to go to Jones Gap State Park. Holly printed clues for us and gave us some tips. This is a beautiful state park with streams and huge rocks. We found our first extreme letterbox there. We had to cross a stream moving from boulder to boulder across the stream. The kids loved this one!
JDog, The High Rollers, Hunter, Super J (Jordan) and Johnny Quest
at Jones Gap State Park
Jordan and I
When we arrived back at the farm, Holly's husband, The Troll, had made everyone delicious chilly. There were 40 to 50 letterboxers there. We exchanged stamps and talked. Holly had 2 night boxing events planed. One was for the kids. They all had flashlights and had to search for letterboxes with reflective tape on them. Hunter and Jordan loved this! The other night boxing event was an adult event named the BCU trail (bring clean underwear). Chris had heard that you would get wet on the trail and since he only had one pair of shoes he wouldn't go. Hunter said I could wear his crocs. (Hunter's foot is almost the same size as mine.) So I was the lone Box Hunter who went. I had my flashlight and some index cards to stamp on. First we had to go down an embankment backwards holding on a rope. Remember this was in the dark. We ended up in the very cold creek. So in the dark with our flashlights walking in a creek, we looked at the trees for reflective pins. (like the kind used for hunters in the woods.) They pointed to letterboxes. Some were covered in slim. Other had fake spiders around them. You get the picture. Also as you walked in the creek, the water got higher and then lower. Charles, one of the High Rollers, was wearing water boots that went up to his knees. The water was so high that his boots filled up. So after we got out, he could lift his leg and water would pour out. One group tried to scare our group. As one of them walked away, she tripped and fell into the water and we all heard a kirpluc. Can you say Karma? It was very funny. After we were finished, we had to climb back up with the rope. It was so much fun! I did have to change my pants and underwear because the creek was that high!
On the way back home, we stopped in Greenville at Smurf Village. Smurf Village in a ROTC training area. One letterboxer planted three smurfs there and invited other boxers to plant smurfs as well. So the Smurf Village population has grown. There are 22 smurfs living there now. Every smurf you can imagine is there. Before we went to Smurf Village, Hunter and Jordan had never seen a smurf. We are going to try to watch a rerun on Cartoon Network. The letterboxers that we boxed with at the farm decided they would go there also. It was on the way home for all of us. One group had started boxing first. They had left before us and skipped lunch. We ate lunch first. Letterboxing with hungry children is no fun. Along the way, there was ROTC training equipment like this cool rope swing.
