Cape + Boxes + Beautiful Weather = FUN!

We left our house at about 7:30 Saturday morning with our sights set for the Cape. Those that know us realize that we're always late! And it's not me!

So - for weeks, I've been telling Sue that the Great Cape Escape gathering started at 10:00, instead of the real 11:00 hour! So, for the first time in our lives, we were at a gathering before it actually started. Felt great but Sue vowed to start checking future gathering pages to verify the real time. Guess I can't use that trick again! :-)

At 10:45, there already was a line at the signup table that was manned by the Capers - those 5 talented gals who were responsible for the gathering: Cape Cod Letterboxer, Mumma & Bunny Boy, Chunna, Archimedes Screw and Cape Cod Lightning Bug. The day could not have been any better - bright blue sky with cool temperatures - perfect letterboxing weather! Once registered, you were given a folder that contained most of the clues and a trail map. After greeting a few friends, both old and new, we headed out to find some boxes.

The Lighthouse Series, the gathering's theme, was our favorite with images of all of the main lighthouses on the Cape. They were artfully-carved with a lot of detail. We ooohed and aaahed at every box. There were other special boxes also hidden for the event, including a box by Orion called "Sailor's Valentine," which was a very creatively made and a wonderful stamp. Shades of Elsie the Cow from the Ice Scream gathering!

At some point before the event on the special Yahoo talk list created by the Capers for the event, the gauntlet was thrown down to Sue & I by Rae Record! On our last trip to the Cape, we unsuccessfully attempted, with the Lazy Letterboxer and the Letterboxing Ham, to find The Phantom of the Boardwalk by Rae. After emailing Rae and telling her about our adventures, she told us that we were probably stepping on the box when we found the geocache that was there!

So Rae decides to lure us in to finding The Phantom, and CapeCodLetterboxers asks about doing it at night, like we were supposed to last time, and before we knew it there are 12 of us heading out to meet at 6:30 for a date with Rae and her Phantom.

After fumbling around a while - it wasn't pretty - Sue finally found the box. In our defense, the geocache by the box was missing, it was dark during most of our search and the beach topography had dramatically changed since our last search. Unbeknownst to us, Brandy had found the box while the rest of us were off searching farther away and never told the group. But Sue officially found the box as well so we're somewhat vindicated! The worst thing of it all was that Rae was taping us with her camera but the battery cut out and she thought the only thing she caught was the audio - which couldn't be as damaging as the video!

But, yesterday I received an email from Rae. It seems that darned battery in that old video camera was working just fine and she has about 15 good minutes of film. D'oh!!! She asked me to send out an email to all of those in attendance to request their permission to allow her to publish the video!! Just what I need! She told me I was almost stepping on the box a number of times and has it on film to prove it! She's evil! Really!

If permission is received from all of the filmed parties, look for it here in the near future . . . . or maybe not! :-)

Hope your weekend was as wonderful as ours. Thanks to the Capers for putting together a delightful gather. Your hard work paid off - it was a huge hit. Can't wait til next year's event.