I feel that when a person plants a letterbox it is a labor of love for those who will be seeking the treasure in the days, months and hopefully years to come. Obviously time dictates how much love I put into a plant (detail of the carve, uniqueness of the logbook, originality of the container, location of the plant etc.) but I feel they are all a gift to the Letterboxing community.
Yesterday I drove from Boise to McCall to plant seven new letterboxes for Yikers and Yak King Blues. That is two hours to McCall and over two hours back based on extremely heavy traffic returning to Boise from the mountains. In addition to planting seven boxes I also created Letterbox Trading Card’s for each image. That is 84 cards in total. Twelve cards of each design. Although they are not by any means my best work (I am always critical of what I create) they were still a labor of love for my friends to have an extra treat waiting for them to find. I knew that there have not been a lot of new letterboxes planted in McCall since their last family reunion and I wanted them to have a new treasure hunt waiting.
I will actually see Yikers and Yak King Blues tomorrow night for dinner as they are driving a cousin to the airport and will be in Boise for the night. I had even switched trips this summer to ensure that I would be in the area when they were coming to visit. We had originally though of hosting a mini meet and greet but in the event that they needed to cancel (due to some very ill relatives) it was easier for me to plan on meeting with them with Birds on a Wire tomorrow night at Louie’s at 5:00 p.m. However, if any locals would like to joins us please do since we have not received word that they are cancelling.
McCall was beautiful but a bit on the toasty side yesterday. I decided to plant once again in Ponderosa State Park. I have other boxes on the hiking trails and since there is a $5.00 entrance fee I thought it would be a good idea to add more boxes to offset the expense. It was so warm that I actually drank 2 bottles of water on the trail as I found hiding spots for the boxes. This park is a high traffic park which will make it interesting to see how well the boxes survive for the long haul. Unfortunately I did not have time to check on my existing boxes or to look for others. That will need to wait for my next visit.
My box planting was helped by a small fox, lots of chipmunks and a wood pecker. All of the pictures of the woodpecker turned out blurry as he was really hopping around the tree trunk that he was on. I guess he was looking for the perfect spot to start pecking. I also marveled at the hundreds of butterflies that were dancing around from plant to plant. I felt like I was in a snow globe of butterflies. Unfortunately my ability to get pictures of them was not great either. They were fluttering and I was focusing but the two did not really combine well just like the woodpecker. It seems like I would get something else in focus other than the butterfly or they would close their wings the minute I snapped the shot.
The other unique thing about these boxes is that they were all images that would remind you of Hawaii. I had hoped to eventually get them to Maui to plant but ran out of time in April and severe illness struck while I was there. So the Maui Meets McCall Letterbox series was born. I actually still feel awful that my folks had to play nurse maid to me in April when I have been 100% healthy for all of my summer time adventures. Looks like I will need to travel back to Maui for a mulligan soon. I am just thankful that neither of my parents caught the bronchitis or sinus infection I had because it turned out to be weeks of misery for me. Now I guess it’s time to work on my clues.
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