Two Quick Finds

After my morning routine I decided I wanted to get out of the house and do something relaxing. So I gathered up my letterboxing stuff and clues to two boxes. Both of the boxes I looked for today were placed by Mim on her recent trip to Santa Fe. One is in the mountains off of Hyde Park Road and the other is in Cochiti.

So I decided to head up to the mountains first. It was a great early morning drive up Hyde Park Road with virtually no traffic. That was exactly what I wanted - a relaxing outing. I followed the clues which took me to a pullout about a half mile before reaching the Big Tesuque Campground. I pulled over and parked, grabbed the letterboxing bag and clues and set out. It was just a short walk to find On the Road with Matt and Mim: Vacationing in the Mountains. I found a log to sit on and stamp in while enjoying the peaceful setting. It was so quiet and I loved starting the day this way. Thanks Mim for placing a box here. [Incidentally, Mim wrote me a note about their adventure hiding this box and I think I had a much better time than they did - here is her story.]

When we planted this one Matt waited in the car for me. I came back to the car to ask him to check my clues. He left the keys in the car and helped me. Well, the car locked itself. (We have old cars with no power locks so we didn't really think about this happening.) So there we were, locked out of the rental car. No cell reception. No sweaters. We stopped a couple of cars on their way down but no one had reception. A young kid said he would call AAA for us from the bottom. We waited about a half hour and began to wonder if he really would call. So we flagged down another car and got a ride to the ranger station at Hyde Memorial Park. They let us use their land line. The kid had called AAA -what a nice kid!- and the estimated time of arrival was in about 20 min. The ranger drove us back up to our car (even though he was not supposed to leave his park boundaries) and we waited. The service truck was about 20 min late and had come, not from Santa Fe, but from some small town 18 miles away. Just under 2 hours start to finish. Not bad. Lots of nice people. It did eat up our time and kill our desire to do more letterboxing. Otherwise we would have gotten a lot more boxes up there. Oh well- next visit!

 Lesson here is always pocket your keys, invest in AAA, keep a light jacket on your person and always remember that anything can happen while you are out letterboxing - it is an adventure, so be prepared. Thankfully they weren't hurt and there was nothing serious (well I guess missing out on letterboxing can be a serious matter), only a loss of time.

Cochiti Lake

After replacing the box and returning to the car I made my way back down the mountain and then to I25. Here I headed south. I took exit 264 to NM16 and followed that to NM22. I turned right here and headed to Cochiti Recreation Area.  I pulled in and parked. The place was deserted, not a single car or person around. The gate to the parking area was open but the building (Visitor Center) was locked up tight. Luckily, I didn't have to go in to find the box. I walked around the right side of the building and easily found the trail. I followed the clues for a short distance down the trail and found Tent Rocks without any problems. [Mim originally wanted to place this box at Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument but they don't allow letterboxes so she decided to leave it at the Recreation Area instead.] This was another peaceful area to sit and stamp in. I replaced the box and returned to the car and still didn't see another person.

I really enjoyed the morning with a couple of great drives and a couple of really nice boxes. I need to make another trip out to this area. It has been quite a while since I visited Tent Rocks and I love the hikes there and I also need to hit the lake and do some kayaking. Now that the weather is starting to warm up maybe I can get these things done.