Boxing in Mt Vernon

Posey Co courthouse-Mt Vernon, In

Today was a beautiful day.  I thought there was a craft show in town but I got the dates wrong and it was last weekend :(

So we did the next best thing, letterboxing.  Some boxers had planted a four part series in the town next to us (Mt Vernon) and we went to get them.  It was a very nice series with some history in downtown.

Hovey Lake-Mt. Vernon, In

There were also some older boxes at Hovey Lake which is southwest of Mt. Vernon.  The boxes all said that they were active but I didn't think that they were there.  The entire area was under water two years ago when the Ohio River flooded.

The last people to find the boxes were there in 2009.  I searched all around with no luck.  Also, the planter no longer boxes so she is no help.

Oh well, we found 4 of the 7 letterboxes that we looked for today.  And we got ice cream :)

Peace Love and Harmonie SUCCESS!

Our letterboxing event was Saturday at Harmonie State Park.  We had a great time!  We had 38 people sign up from 3 states!  When I first thought about having an event I imagined a picnic with a dozen people from Evansville.  I never guessed people would come from all around.  The other hosts are already talking about a weekend event in the spring.
The only complaint/suggestion that we got about the event was that people didn't have enough time to get all the boxes.  I was really surprised at how many table top boxes were sent in.  It will probably take me a few hours to log all the event boxes, exchanges, PTs, table tops, trail boxes, night boxes, cooties, fleas, etc.
My family camped at the state park before and after the event.  One of the things I liked best about the weekend was exchanging at the campground.  It was more laid back than the event.  That is probably what I will look forward to the most if we do a camp out next time.

Stamping at the shelter house 9/22/12

My boys stamping.  Lego Clone Trooper (in blue) had a great time.  He got more exchanges and table tops than I did.  He is already looking forward to another event.

The Princess and my nieces stamping table tops. 

This is the cemetery that we planted several boxes at.

BPWigand and Family, R2-D2, and Daddy's Favorite Princess stamping a pirate series. 

Fall Festival Stamps

The 91st annual West Side Nut Club Fall Festival will begin on October 1st.  This is the second largest street festival in the country.  4 blocks of West Franklin St will be lined with 136 food booths.  The booths are non-profit or not-for-profit groups from all over the area.  They believe that over 200,000 people visit the festival each year.  

My husband has been helping his friend make a food booth for the group Restoring Our Heritage.  They have been working late nights and I decided to make a letterbox to attach to it.  This is their first year to have a booth.  The Nut Club recently bought a parking lot and are letting more groups set up booths there. http://www.restoringourheritage.com/index.htm

Another booth in the same area is The Gathering Church.  The pastor was our youth pastor when we were in high school.  A few years back he felt led to start his own church.  This is also their first year to have a booth at the festival. http://www.thegatheringevansville.com/

I will post the clues to these boxes on the first day of the Fall Festival.  Here is a  Munchie Map of all the food available:
http://www.nutclub.org/images/stories/pdfs/2012_munchie_map.pdf. 

Event Planting

I have been very busy lately getting ready for our event.  I believe I said that I have never been to a big event before so I am both nervous and excited.  But the event is being put on by a group of us and I really feel like I am not doing much.  Oh well.

I made eight trail boxes for the event (I posted some of them earlier).  Three will be at a cemetery and five around a trail at the campground.  I feel sorry for the Princess because she has had to walk the cemetery trail three times now.  We went once to check it out & look for hiding spots, again to plant the boxes, and lastly to put the clues in the first box for the bonus.  It is a flat mile but she is staring to complain that she doesn't like letterboxing.

Then I have five fall stamps I will leave there for the  fall.  That trail is also a mile and I feel that that is too many stamps to stay there forever.

My HIPS boxes are ready to go and I have been collecting items for the raffle.  I am a little concerned that we will have to many raffle items.  One of the others putting on the event had a big basket of stuff when we met a few weeks ago.  Most of it she didn't even get out for me to see.

I have been thinking about making a "First Finder" LTC.  I wanted the background to be a map and I really struggled to find map scrapbook paper.  I was looking for a road map but this is good enough.  They are being released for the first time in my event trail boxes.

My 1st LTC

This is my very first LTC!  I made it in June for the "I Missed the Swapping at Rock the Mall" tracker.  A Girl Scout letterboxer friend suggested that I try an LTC swap.  This is just a stamped image that has been embossed.  I love embossing :)

I have carved this stamp 3 times.  The first time it went missing.  I believe it was thrown away when someone was cleaning up from a storm.  Then two Girl Scouts posted that they were looking for scout stamps to use while celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Girl Scouts.  So I carved it again and again and sent them on their merry way.  I believe one went to New England and the other to Missouri.

Garden of the Gods, Ill

Yesterday we had a great time letterboxing at the Garden of the Gods & Pounds Hollow in southeast Illinois.  It had been 5 years since we were there last and big boys didn't really remember much about it.  But since dad did not come I would not let them climb around as much as they would have liked.     

R2-D2, Lego Clone Trooper and the Princess climbing at Garden of the Gods.  We found 1 of the 2 boxes here.

Lil Ewok waiting for the big kids to get a box at Pounds Hollow.  They climbed a dry waterfall and couldn't find it so mom had to go look.  

 Cool rocks on the trail at Pounds Hollow.

This is box 3 of 4 at fat mans squeeze.  We had no problems finding the first 3 but then the clues got funny and we didn't know where to go for the last one.  We looked around for a bit but we were so tired that we just turned around and went back the way we came.  So, we found 4 of the 6 boxes we went looking for :)