Injured before I even found a box

I have been doing some research for my next column on Letterboxing this weekend. Ever since my first column about geocaching, I've had letterboxers emailing me to write about their game. I thought it about time I figured out how to play.

I had a great chat with Jeremy at the Art Guru in Gorham yesterday because he also happens to be a letterboxing guru too.

To oversimplify things, letterboxing is a lot like geocaching without the GPS unit. To find letterboxes, players have to solve puzzles/riddles instead of using coordinates. And to be honest, the reason I've waited so long to try the game is because downloading coordinates to a traditional cache is easier. (Yes geocachers, I know there are other kinds of caches that use riddles/puzzles too, I just haven't done those yet.) Plus, I love using my high tech gadget.

Another difference (and apparently a common mistake for geocachers finding a letter box by mistake) is that you don't TAKE anything away from the box. You stamp your personal log book with the stamp provided in the letterbox and then you stamp the box's log book with your stamp.

Jeremy gave me some suggestions on how to make a stamp, which we needed before we set out to find our first box. I found from looking through his logbook that letterboxers take great pride in making their own stamps and really are beautiful works of art.

I knew the stamp I was going to make would be less than impressive but I bought the eraser, flexible tip markers (to ink the stamp once I made it) and a new blank notebook and took it all home to show the kids.

Fino was busy in his clubhouse, oh I mean his newly completed shed, in the backyard so the task of using the sharp carving tools to make the family stamp was left to me.

I traced a picture of Bunny - of course! - onto the eraser and then started cutting away the shape. But I had a little trouble.

It took a few minutes but even though I was really, really careful, I managed to cut myself with the carving tool. It was one of those times when I was so focused on NOT doing something, that I couldn't help but do it.

 
My carving skills have a lot to be desired but I managed to get something that sort of resembled Bunny on the eraser. And then I totally got lazy with our log name (RobotBunny) because initials was all I could manage.

This week we're going back to visit Jeremy to find the letterbox hidden inside the Art Guru store then venture out to find some other boxes. We'll let you know how things go.

If you letterbox and have some tips for us, please post a comment.