My daughter and I planted the "A Very Ducky Day" letterbox on Friday, which she has had designed in her head since early December. (If you read the intro to the clue you'll find the story). But with the big windstorm, the holidays, snow, ice, and a recent death in the family our letterboxing (particularly planting) has been sporatic at best. "Rumpledoodle" was so excited to finally get to plant her box, and she is tickled pink that two of our local letterboxers (thanks Land Pirates and Lightning Jeff!) have found it already. She is just beaming...and so is her Mom because of...and I wanted to say thank you to both of you, and to those of you who may have put it on your "to find" list for the future.

The thing is...she really IS passionate about letterboxing! She loves to look at everyone's logbooks regularly because she loves to see what you all have found. So believe you me...she knows who ALL of you are!! We logged in last night to see if we had a first finder and hollered "Yippee!" when she found the Land Pirates name. Tonight I yelled upstairs to her, "hey, Lightning Jeff found your box today!" and she hollered again..."No way, Mom...really? LIGHTNING JEFF?? REALLY??" She really thinks of you all as quite famous and she can't wait to see who finds it next.

Now 5 year old "Rooty-toot" wants in on the fun and has asked me to make a letterbox he has designed...and the idea is really fun. I can't wait to get to work on it.

Thanks again!

Mama Heffalump

How cool! Having come from the world of geocaching, I remember fondly the first time someone found one of my hides, and I felt the same way - like someone really famous was going out of their way to find what I had hidden. Okay, I still feel that way! So I know just how Rumpledoodle feels. And let me tell you, we really did like this box. We had never been to this park before and ended up spending much of the afternoon strolling, playing at the playground, watching the ducks and other birds, and just having a really nice time. The Harry Potter fans in our group also enjoyed the "9 3/4" reference.

(By the way, did you know that there is a geocache within about 12 feet of your box? We found it my accident. The next time you are there, make sure the coast is clear, then check out that "9 3/4" post!)

I'm glad you posted this. You know, I just finished carving the stamp for my first plant. I may make it a series so it may not be placed for a little while yet, but when I do get it placed, I'll be just as thrilled if Rumpledoodle and the rest of the Friends find it!

Jeff

I didn't know there was a geocache so close by. Thanks for the heads up! I even set up an account on a geocache board awhile back so I could see caches in the area were planted so as to not put a letterbox too close but did I bother to CHECK before planting "Ducky Day"? Of course not! D'oh!

We'll have to go take a look soon.

Mama Heffalump

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I didn't know there was a geocache so close by. Thanks for the heads up! I even set up an account on a geocache board awhile back so I could see caches in the area were planted so as to not put a letterbox too close but did I bother to CHECK before planting "Ducky Day"? Of course not! D'oh!

It wouldn't have shown up as being there anyway, as it is a 4-leg "multi cache" that ends there.

One of my goals as a participant in both activities is to help each understand the other - and in particular, to educate geocachers about letterboxing so they will know what a letterbox is when they stumple upon one and know not to take the stamp. I suspect "Ducky" will be receiving a number of accidental visits by geocachers looking for that final. However, I think it is labeled well enough that hopefully no one will mess with it. Now that I think of it though, you might want to contact the owner of that cache; he might be willing to place a note on the cache listing asking that people make sure they don't mistake a letterbox for the cache. He won't want to be specific about which letterbox, because the final location of the cache is supposed to be a secret and quite challenging to find.

Here's the cache listing: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=63ad56db-b6b4-4478-bcb2-fda2c978bfd0&log=y

Jeff