Three Year Letterboxing Anniversary

Today marks three years that I have been letterboxing and even though I have now found 1147 letterboxes I can still remember that first find like it was yesterday - Santa Fe Trail Microbox by Silver Eagle. After finding that box I knew I was hooked. So in three years I have found boxes in 18 states and in Canada, I have visited tons of places I probably would never have gone to and I have met some of the nicest people around.

To celebrate this anniversary I pretty much did only things related to letterboxing this weekend. On Saturday morning I planted a new letterbox - Siddhārtha Gautama and replaced a missing letterbox - New Mexico's Eternal Flame. Later I joined Astro D and rubberpeace for lunch. We talked about rubberpeace's recent letterboxing trip to the Oregon Coast and some of the neat letterboxes she found and we talked about the upcoming trip to Texas that Astro D and I are taking to T.A.L.E. 6 - Texas Heritage (You will be able to read about it at Texas Heritage Letterboxing Trip).

On Sunday I received a call from Astro D asking if I had read the letterboxing article about us in the Albuquerque Journal (I knew about the article but hadn't yet picked up the paper). So after hanging up I went to the store and got a paper and after reading the article I talked again with Astro D. We both thought they did a great job with the article - thanks Carolyn. If you go to Toast Ranch Ramblings you can read about our 15 Minutes of Fame from Astro D's point of view. The rest of the day I did some carvings and looked up clues for the Texas trip.

Today - the actual anniversary date of my first find - I went out to letterbox. The first place I visited was Camel Rock in Tesuque. In January Fantastyk Voyager placed a letterbox there and I patiently waited until today so that I would have at least one box to find. So I found Camel Rock, stamped in, took some pictures and then headed south to find one more box. I drove the Turquoise Trail (Hwy 14) to Tijeras. I was looking for the Monkey Cave letterbox placed by TwinvilleTrekkers. This box is placed off of Hwy 337 at a man made cave that was created by UNM Geology students as a test pit. The cave got its name from monkeys that escaped testing in 1973 from Lovelace Foundation at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque and ended up living in the cave. I parked at a pull off on the east side of the road and I could see the cave from my car. I got my letterboxing stuff and walked down into a little canyon and then back up to the cave. A short and easy hike (except the last bit to the cave - a lot of loose rocks made for unstable footing) up to the cave. I peeked my head into the cave but didn't actually crawl in and I took a few pictures. Then I turned my attention to the letterbox. It was hidden by a big boulder near the cave. I stamped in and rehid the box. Then I just sat there and enjoyed the peaceful morning.

I had contemplated finding other boxes but decided that I was done for the day. I still had an hour drive back home. So I headed north on Hwy 14 and arrived home a little after 1:00pm. It was a great way to celebrate my third anniversary of letterboxing.