Monkey Business

Yesterday we decided to track down our first letterbox. There are several hidden near us, so we opted for what appeared to be a straightforward box as our first experiment.

We packed the equipment and snacks. We forsook a full-fledged lunch, as it appeared to be a pretty short jaunt, though we did take a bottle of water. We loaded the equipment into a day pack, I found my trusty blackthorn stick and we packed the letterboxers and the intrepid Dartmoor Boxhound into the Kia Sportage and headed off to the trail head. We found the start point with ease, and parked in the shade. Maggie was already on the scent of the box.

We followed the first two instructions like scouts, but after that things got foggy. We proceeded on a lovely mile-and-a-half long nature walk in Folsom, trying to spot which "two oak trees" were growing right next to each other, but we couldn't decide which two they were! Eventually we wandered into a children's play park, and we took advantage of a shady bench for a swig of water and to re-evaluate our instructions. Maggie was looking exhausted, and needed to rest. We opted to back-track, keeping a particular eye out for rock clusters this time.

We were nearly back to the trail head when it paid off! Jennifer and Maggie spotted a couple of rock groupings, and, lo and behold, one of them was home to the Monkey Business box! We were very excited. We stamped the cute monkey stamp in our journal, and we put our monogram into the Monkey Business journal, dated it and noted that it was our first adventure! What fun! We can hardly wait for our next adventure!