Letterboxing

September 21, 2005

New Letterboxing Section

Along with the new section on Chess, I've also started a section on Letterboxing. I was first introduced to letterboxing by some friends. It sounded like fun to take a nice walk in the park. Then I found my first letterbox. I was hooked.

Letterboxing is like a cross between a hike and a treasure hunt. There are numerous letterboxes placed in this area and many more throughout the world. Since my job involves some local travel, I'm sure that this will make many a trip so much more worthwhile.

As I build up this section, I'll put up some links to letterboxing sites. I'll also be documenting some of the ones I've found and hopefully be placing some of my own at some point.

To start, all you need is a stamp, stamp pad, notebook, and some free time. A quick search of the Internet will give you letterboxing sites with clues to where the boxes can be found. You follow the clues to the site and find the box. Inside you will find a stamp, stamp pad, and a notebook. You put your stamp in their notebook and write something about your experience. Then you stamp their stamp in your notebook and write something about it. And you put it all back so the next person can find it. Sometimes you can even find a hitchhiker stamp in the box. When you do, you take it and place it in the next letterbox that you run across. That's how they hitchhike from box to box... Pretty neat, eh?

This is a scan of the stamp that I use. I made it out of a pink pearl eraser. To make your own stamp, use a pencil to create the image. Make sure that you use a lot of pencil on the paper. Then you firmly press the eraser on top of the pencil drawing. This will create a reverse image that you can use to make your stamp. Then you can either carve out the pencil marks or carve out everything around it. It takes a little time and effort, but will allow you to make a stamp that is uniquely yours. [Or you can go to any craft shop and buy one...]

I'm looking forward to finding more boxes soon. In the meantime, I'll be posting the ones I already found (just a few) on the sidebar. The actual creation of the letterboxes I want to place is going to take a bit longer. I have to figure out what kind of theme I want (of course, it needs a theme - doesn't everything have a theme?), gather/create the materials, determine where I want to place them and conjure up some clues. That's going to take a bit of time. I'm sure the more boxes I find, the easier it will be to pull this all together.

Posted by BlueWolf on September 21, 2005 11:28 PM