Not All Geocachers are Bad!

Yesterday Sue & I spent a wonderful day letterboxing with half of The Schmoopies (the other half of the Schmoopies were home nursing a bad back.) Our game plan was to have a Bandaid marathon - hitting as many of Bandaid's boxes as we could in the Redding, CT area. We have wanted to visit that part of the state for the longest time so plans were made many months ago which resulted in our having to beg off from the invite to attend Music Woman's letterboxing shower that was held at Bluebird's on the same day.

When planning the day, I noticed 2 series of boxes along the Housatonic River in Shelton that looked interesting so we started out our day there after leaving Southington at about 9:30. While we were going from the first to the second box in the first series, we encountered a father and his young son, papers in hand, who said to us "Are you doing what we are?"

It turns out they were geocaching, not letterboxing, since this park held not only 7 letterboxes but, as he told us, about 10 geocaches as well. Now we understood why the first box we found, and all of the other 6 afterwards, had little notices in them that said "This is not a geocache" but went on to include a geocachers log as well. Everything made sense then.

He asked if we had found the "Charter Oak" box since they had just replaced it. It seems they search for both letterboxes and geocaches. "Replaced it?" I asked. Then he told me how they were out Saturday (the previous day) in the pouring rain (geocachers are nuts as well!) and after finding this letterbox, noticed kids hanging around where the box should be replaced. Instead of risking the box getting stolen, he said, he decided to take it home overnight and had just returned it in its proper place. I wondered how many letterboxers would have thought to do the same?

When we went to search for this box - there it was - safe and sound in it's hidey hole. The moral of this story is that boxers & cachers can peacefully coexist!

Suffice it to say that the rest of the day was just as remarkable as we hunted around the hills of Redding looking for all things Bandaid! Parts of Redding reminded us of Hartman Park in East Lyme. It was a great day that yielded many humorous moments; sunny and cool weather sprinkled with some great boxes and a story or two to tell. The perfect ingredients to remind us why we do this thing - and how important it is for us both physically and mentally to . . .

Just Get Out There & Box!!!