Boxing in Ohio

Prairie Props

This weekend we had a great time boxing in Ohio.  We went to Greenville for the 4th time and attended the Big Top on the Prairie event.  The event started at 9am (an hour earlier than last time) so Boxing Turtle, Daddy's Favorite Princess, and I got up at 3am.  The kids slept most of the way while I drove in the dark and rain.  We stopped once to potty and get breakfast.

We actually arrived at the event about 15 minutes early but there were a lot of other people already there.  We checked in and hit the trails.  They were calling for rain and we wanted to get boxes before it hit.

Boxing in the rain

It was a circus themed event and the the trails were for the three rings of the circus.  We did the first two rings.  The first one had a lot of mosquitoes but I don't think it was as bad as the Story Time on the Prairie year.  I'm pretty sure it was much worse that year!

After the first two rings of the circus we headed inside for lunch.  We were early so we stamped some of the inside boxes.  One of them, they had taken a box if wooden circus toys (kinda like a kids puzzle) and made stamps of the toys.  It was such a fun idea.  They also had people dressed up and walking around with stamps.  But we were focused on other stuff and didn't realize that you had to talk to them before noon to get the stamps.

Greenville Cemetery

After lunch was the raffle.  We didn't want to miss the raffle but wanted to get the last ring of the circus outside before the rain hit.  We left Boxing Turtle inside and the Princess and I went outside.  We probably got 5 boxes before it started to sprinkle.  We got them as fast as we could and went back inside where they were still calling names for the raffle.  The Princess won a fancy hair clip.

At this point we were finished with all of the official boxes for the event and started doing some exchanges.  Because of the rain, the room was pretty crowded.  Boxing Turtle was getting bored so we left to look for boxes in town.  We planted a box in the city park and found some in a local cemetery & GyspyLadybugs house.  We also stopped at a local ice cream place and looked for a box but could not find it.  Another boxer pulled up while we were looking so we all looked together.

Wet Spring Grove boxing

We headed south to Dayton where we would be staying the night.  We checked into the hotel, got dinner at the Cracker Barrel, and went to a nearby cemetery to look for 3 boxes.  We got the first one, struggling a bit because we are not used to using a compass.  We went to get the second one and it started pouring down rain.  We stopped and went back to the hotel.  We showered, logged finds, and watched some tv.

Spring Grove Cemetery

The next morning we got up, had breakfast, checked out, and went back to the nearby cemetery.  The found the second box were were looking for the night before and went looking for the third box.  They had a tornado recently in Dayton and the far corner of the cemetery had damage.  We believe the stone we were looking for had been knocked over on the box.

After that, we got a box on the way out of town by Safari Man and fill up with gas.  Next stop, Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati.  I was very excited to box here.  I had heard so many good things about it and there were so many boxes to find.  We planned on spending a lot of time here and printed off 50 clues.  But it did not go well.  It rained, I got frustrated, and the kids were grumpy.  We only found 4 of the first 10 we looked for.

Spring Grove Cemetery

Then it stopped raining and our boxing got better.  We ending up finding 15 of 26 and 3 Hitchhikers.  Of course we had to plant a box here too. We also saw many animals while boxing-a fox, 4 turkeys, a baby skunk, chipmunks, squirrels, ducks, geese, and a hawk.  My original plan was to stay until 4 so that we were not getting home real late.  But at the end we got on a roll and stayed until almost 6.

Our grand total for the weekend (drum roll please) was 131 traditional boxes, 5 Hitchhikers, and some exchanges & table tops!  I took a quick look at my stats for 2019, I have 221 finds.  My next highest year was 2015 with 225 boxes.  Unless all my local boxers fall off the face of the earth, this year will be my highest finds yet <3