Today's Letterboxing Adventures

Today was a beautiful day for letterboxing. So, we took advantage of the terrific weather and headed out to find as many boxes as we could. We decided to start in Fort Wayne at Johnny Appleseed Park where we were in for a couple surprises.

Once we got to the Johnny Appleseed Park area, we had problems finding the correct entrance. Third time's a charm, I guess. After parking, we walked past the log cabin, looked for the correct electrical tower, took a reading on the compass, and found our treasure by a tree in the woods. "Johnny Appleseed" was right where it was supposed to be.

As Spencer opened the outer bag, he noticed that there was something special in it ... a hitch hiker!!! (A hitch hiker is a separate letterbox that you stamp in and then take with you to leave at the next box you find. It's exciting to see where it's been and all the neat stamps that have logged in.) As we were getting out all our stamping supplies we noticed that some people were watching us. Now, appropriate letterboxing ediquette says to take the box away from the hiding spot to stamp in. We were a little late doing this, but took all the stuff and moved away from the hiding spot.

As we continued looking through the logbook, noticing several letterboxers representing far away states like California and New York, the people watching us began to approach us. How exciting to find out they were fellow letterboxers from Ohio. And, they were the ones who had just hidden the hitch hiker! (See, it turned out to be a blessing that we couldn't find the correct entrance right away!) Anyway, we exhanged stamps with each other, which means you put your personal stamp impression in other's logbooks. We talked for awhile, wished each other well and then the three of us went on to find the second letterbox, "Johnny's Love."

After we finished with the two boxes at Johnny Appleseed Park, we got a quick lunch to go and headed to Shipshewana in hot pursuit of 11 letterboxes. There are two letterbox series in Shipshewana ... 6 in one series and 5 in the other. We were very excited about the possible finds!

Our time in Shipshewana had a rocky start as well because we couldn't find the Visitor's Center, and on top of that I noticed that one of the places hiding a letterbox closed at 3pm and it was already after two. So, we decided to go out of order and stopped at one of the letterbox hiding spots to ask where the Visitor's Center was and snagged that box while we were there. We were disappointed to find out that the Visitor's Center is closed on Saturdays, so we weren't able to get that one at all. But, we were able to find the other 10 letterboxes, so it was a very successful day. And, we each came home with 15 new stamps in our logbooks.

Letterboxing in Shipshewana was very different than traditional letterboxing. All but one of the hiding spots were in stores ... the other was in a library ... which made it very difficult to be discreet. In fact, we were caught almost every time we were taking or returning a letterbox. The letterbox in the library was really, super cool ... it was actually a thick paperback novel with the very middle pages cut out to hide the stamp and logbook! Very clever!

We decided to leave the hitch hiker with one of the boxes in Shipeshewana and then headed over to Middlebury to eat at Essenhuas, where we absolutely stuffed ourselves and then walked through some of the shops. By that time we were tired and ready to head home, but with smiles on our faces from a wondeful day.