Letterboxing, part deux

This weekend, I ferried the team out to Schenectady to visit my father. My sister from Kansas City, KS is visiting him. We don't get to see them often, so their coming back to civilization is a great reason for a trip out to Sch'dy.

I decided to check out some letterboxes while we were there and I also thought that bringing the niece and nephew with us might be fun both for the boys and for the cousins. So we became scalzidragonfireballs + 2 from KS.

We checked out the boxes at Union College. There are 4. We found 2! We were uncertain of the clues for the first box and we forgot to even look for the fourth. The boys were a bit tired and I didn't want to push them too far, so after we found box number 3, we just went for ice cream and then home. The stamps were very well carved and I showed all the kids how the log books were hand made. We got to see how all the boxes were put together and now Firstborn has a good idea of what we are looking for.

Cousin J found the first box. She can be tenacious. And she was very creative in applying the clues to what we were actually seeing. Don't want to print a spoiler, but the clues could not be followed to a tee on box #2. So you had to use logic and she did that well. So did Firstborn, but I dissuaded him since he was giving a suggestion but not showing me his logic. Had he shown his thinking, I might have said, go ahead and try it. It just seemed like he was desperately grabbing at straws. Next time, I will be more patient and ask him to explain why he is looking in that area.

Firstborn was able to find box 3 quickly. We won't take away points for the fact that it was out in the open. :-) We will give him great points for being very discreet when he found it and not shouting with joy the way his face showed that he really wanted to. We wanted him to find Box #3 because I want him to be excited about this. So when we were reading the prescribed plaque and he couldn't figure out how to pronounce the word Schenectady (he was looking at it upside down), I made a big show out of making him come around to my side of the stone to read it. As he came around the stone, he couldn't help but see the box. The whole time cousin J and cousin B were smiling over his head at me because they had seen it. Lastborn was totally oblivious as he usually is. But he mostly participates in letter boxing for the social aspect anyway.

Once we stamped in, I asked Firstborn to re hide the box "better than he found it." Silly me. He headed back into a pile of brush to "hide it good." so I had to explain to him that this phrase means to use the same spot, but cover the box more thoroughly.

We did have fun and cousin B thinks he would really like to look up some boxes in the Kansas City area.

While the kids did enjoy their ice cream at Stewart's afterward, I don't think that the ice cream was the highlight of the day.

It was so nice for me to have an organized way to show the kids the Union College campus, the Nott Memorial, Jackson's Gardens, and so many other sights in the area. We could see St. John's church from the distance though none of the kids could recognize "Grandma's Church." So that was a fun thing to do as well. Then I told them about how Aunt P and Uncle L had been married in that church and I pointed out the Union College building where they had their reception and told them about how Aunt P had a bagpiper lead us all as we marched across Union Avenue (4 lanes of traffic) to the building at Union College and how traffic had to stop for our little parade of about 100 people.
I pointed out the Dorms and how they are all called houses just like in Harry Potter. Firstborn even said he liked the campus and might be interested in going to College there "if only they had Chemistry there." Well of course Union offers Chemistry. So maybe he will be attending Union too. We only have to wait 8 years to find out.
So how many other college campuses have letterboxes hidden in them. :-) What a great way to start the kids thinking about going off to college.