More Capital Boxing

The weekend was a lot of fun. We had a great time letterboxing and sightseeing with Bellmotel and Whiz Gee. We found quite a few letterboxes and enjoyed some of the Greenbelts that Austin has to offer. So I left off on my last post at Sunday night. I’ll now fill you in on the last couple of days.Monday morning started early. Thomas had to check in for his conference and I headed over to Zilker Park. I wanted to get a letterbox planted and have a chance to walk around the Botanical Gardens. I parked and entered the gardens. At first I just walked and enjoyed all the flowers. Then I got serious about finding a nice home for my Sakura letterbox. I planned to place the box in the Isamu Taniguchi Japanese Garden, so I spent some time looking for a spot that wasn’t well groomed and that would be hidden enough from the public. The gardens are beautiful and I thoroughly enjoyed myself on this humid morning. Once the box was in place and I felt satisfied that it would be okay I returned to my car.

I now needed to go shopping. On Sunday afternoon my camera quit working. I am not sure what happened – it just shut down. I tried changing the batteries and that didn’t work, and I pushed every button on the camera and it still wouldn’t work. So on Monday morning I went out and bought a new camera – it is almost exactly like my old camera – just an updated version. The one that broke was five years old. Once I had made my decision on which camera I wanted I paid for it and then headed back to the hotel. I was meeting Bellmotel at 11:00 to head for Bastrop for some letterboxing at South Shore Lake State Park.

Ms. Bellmotel was a little late in picking me up due to the fact that willhime had planted a new box and posted the clues that morning. Bellmotel was determined to be the first finder (and she was!), so that put her getting to the hotel a little late. After throwing my letterboxing gear in the back seat and getting in the car we were off to Bastrop. Bellmotel informed me of letterboxes at McKinney Roughs State Park so we decided to stop there first. I am glad we did – it is a wonderful spot and we enjoyed walking around. We also found four really nice boxes thanks to Boots Tex, Lone Star Quilter, Baby Bear and Silver Eagle. Now time to get to Bastrop. We wanted to get the boxes that we didn’t have time for when we attended the Texas Treasures gathering in March, so we arrived at the park and hit the trails. We hiked two trails and collected the following stamps . . .

Just ‘in Case by WOWMOM, Texas Treasures by JBanana, GWP Series: Pancho Villa by Barefoot Lucy, TX Chainsaw Massacre by Silver Eagle, The Texas Champions Series (4) by Sandibox, and Pinch! Pinch! by WOWMOM & KoolKid.

During our little letterboxing adventure in South Shores Bellmotel found her 100th letterbox. It was Just 'in Case - WOOHOO for Bellmotel!!!!!We then left South Shores and made a stop at Bastrop State Park. We hiked one trail and looked for two boxes by Armyswmr99 – we were unable to find either box. It was getting late and we needed to get back to Austin – so we called it a day and drove the hour back to the hotel. It was a nice time in Bastrop and I thoroughly enjoyed all three parks we stopped at.

When I got back to the hotel room Thomas was there waiting. His conference dinner had finished and he wanted to walk down to Congress Avenue and see the bats. So we headed out for an evening walk. We got to the bridge and found a nice spot to sit and watch for the bats to make their evening flight for food. We enjoyed it and it was a sight watching all these bats coming out from under a bridge. On the way back to the hotel we stopped for coffee and dessert and then called it an evening.

Our original plans were to leave Austin at about 1:00 pm to start heading home on Tuesday. So I planned to do a little letterboxing and then get back to the hotel at noon and get everything ready to leave. Early Tuesday morning Thomas found out he had meetings until 4:30 pm so that gave me the whole day to letterbox. So I headed out following my map as I went from one location to the next to find boxes. I visited Balcones District Park, Allen Park, Northwest District Park, Austin Memorial Park Cemetery, Mt. Bonnell – Covert Park and Zilker Park. I saw flowers, squirrels, great views and even a few peacocks. It was a busy, fun and wonderful day. I found the following boxes . . .

Balcones Critter by rolly polly, blockhead by TheBishop, Bringing Down the Hamer & Traveler, Citizen, Writer by jb kokpelli, I’ll Fly Away by Fire Dragon, Mt. Bonnell by TheBrownKnight and Beth & Jo by Bloomin Gramma Jo.

All nice boxes and in great places around Austin. I even left time to back to the Botanical Gardens to walk around some more and take pictures. I also stopped by the Barton Springs Pool and had a snow cone. Then I met Thomas back at the hotel and we decided to go to IKEA to do a little shopping. We bought a few things and enjoyed walking around the store. Then we went out for dinner. After dinner we drove to the Capitol and walked around the inside and outside of the building. I took plenty of pictures and then we returned to the hotel to get packed for out trip back home in the morning.

Today was a pretty uneventful day. I am typing this as Thomas drives us home. We encountered a little rain but nothing too bad and we had a good drive home. We still have about two hours until Santa Fe but we are close and although we had a great time in Austin we will be glad to be home.