Last call for year of giving 2026 tracker

Last call for Great Lakes Letterboxing Bingo! You have by midnight tonight to submit your card! I don't want to skip anyone who would have wanted to play. I've responded to everyone whose card I have received, so please let me know if you think I missed yours. You can contact me with questions, concerns, or updates at GreatLakesBingo@gmail.com.

Anxiously awaiting the first call!! Surely I will win something this year. :)

I'm getting twitchy too!


Personally, I have the comfort of knowing I can't do any worse than last year. :)

Dawnkey, 2025 Bingo Biggest Loser

I don't know. Maybe finishing in the spot just above the Biggest Loser would make someone a bigger loser than if you won Biggest Loser. So, goals for 2026?

Now I’m feeling cursed!

That’s adorable!

Hysterical!!
Came across her stamp in a log book recently and it made me giggle...now I'm sitting here chortling.

Hi there! As a frequent carver, sending stamps to events-and also an active host of LTC trackers, I just want to bring attention to this new policy, effective 12/24/25:
A new USPS policy, effective December 24, 2025, changes when mail is postmarked from the drop-off date to the date it's first sorted at a processing facility, impacting deadlines for taxes, bills, and ballots; the U.S. Postal Service says this aligns with its "Delivering for America" plan for efficiency but can create later postmarks, so users should get a manual stamp at a post office counter or use certified mail for critical deadlines.

One of the guidelines for LTC trackers is that participants should send their cards by a certain "send by" date; hosts can also set their trackers to a "receive by" date. This postmark situation impacts hosts, as we have to follow our own guidelines and if a participant sends AFTER the date on the tracker, we are obligated to return their cards unsorted in fairness to the others who sent on time. As a rule, I have always referenced the postmark cancellation stamps to verify that participants did indeed send them on time, and now I can't do that anymore. While it's true that some hosts will bend the rules from time to time, the principal still exists that mailing needs to be timely, so...from now on I will only be adhering to the RECEIVE BY date that I will post on my LTC trackers, and will note the same when I send stamps for events, since we have no guarantees anymore about when the USPS will actually process our mail once it is put in the blue box. So, it will now be up to participants to use their own best judgement and timing to make and send their cards in such a manner that they can feel certain that they will arrive on time. Let's hope that 2026 will bring us some better quality in the way our USPS delivers!! (*fingers crossed!*)

Half of my mail arrives without any cancelation or a completely unreadable postmark.

I have always preferred the "this is the sorting date" deadline for swaps as a host.

When I send my LTCs for Trackers I always go inside to make sure I have enough stamps, and they postmark cancellation stamps right there. The lady at the Post Office knows me and in the last one she made the comment: 'this one is heavy', smile and said 'you have enough stamps and right there she did the postmark cancellation stamp

Several months ago, MagicalMichelle posted a question asking what other books about letterboxing existed besides The Letterboxer’s Companion and my letterboxing memoir Adventures in Letterboxing, which prompted a few other books to be added to the list. I would now like to add one more to that list.

I have just published a book called Letterboxing 101. You can read the description on Amazon, but basically it’s a novel about twin boys taking a college course about letterboxing and their resulting adventures.
Just as I did for my first book, I have placed a letterbox with the same name as the book: Letterboxing 101 letterbox. The clues can be found within the book and the stamp image can be downloaded if you live too far away to visit the box.

I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing my first novel!
Silver Eagle

It’s a little confusing with LTCs sometimes because some people have it as “Receive By” and some have it as “Send By” which has really tripped me up in the past, and this whole postmark situation has made it even more frustrating. I think you’re right and it’s best to just default to “receive by.”

Also, as a host I have also received envelopes of cards with no cancellation (regular 6x9 Kraft envelopes too, not just taped/reusable) or postmark. It’s just the nature of the post office these days it seems.

I feel for the workers. You know they’re the ones who are gonna get yelled at or harassed about it. I took gift cards to the ladies at my station for Christmas and told them how much I appreciated them and I swear one of them was about to cry.

So this begs the questions: is this book autobiographical? And are you and your letterboxing brother twins in real life?

Congratulations on your new book!

The book is not strictly autobiographical, though the twin brothers in the book do have similar personalities to myself (John) and Baby Bear (Sam), even if slightly mixed. We are not twins, in fact we are separated by 9 years, but we might as well be when it comes to letterboxing.
A few of the events have been experienced by us or people we know, but mostly I just imagined what kind of mischief we would have gotten into if we started letterboxing in college.
Thanks for your interest!

Wow, that is so cool! Having met you in person and getting a hint of your personality, I imagine that it's a great read - it's on my list!

I'm also jealous... I wish I had the time to write. Congratulations and lots of success to you.

This is so cool! Will you sign it at TALE for me??? 😉

Yes, I will sign and stamp it.
Thanks!

I ordered mine : ) and will also bring to TALE for you to sign and stamp- how fun!

Shelly

Thanks for the kind words and I hope the book lives up to your expectations.


It does require quite a bit of time and I had to dedicate at least two or three hours a day writing over about three months. But this was during the holidays so I had many other commitments that interfered with that schedule. As my wife would tell you, even if I wasn't actually writing I was thinking about it most of the time and would try to jot down thoughts whenever they occurred. As was the case when I was working and had a programming problem, I would get some of my best inspirations while exercising, then have to try and remember them until I got done. I would even wake up in the middle of the night and have thoughts I hoped I would remember in the morning.

Writing this novel was much harder than writing my non-fiction book since I had to make up all the names and plot. I did use real places that I was familiar with to ease some of the burden, which also showcased parts of Texas for others to explore. One of the most amazing things that happened was in the middle of the process I watched the movie "The Man Who Invented Christmas" which shows what Charles Dickens went through to write "A Christmas Carol". He used real-life inspirations along with imagination to bring his characters to life, and I realized I was doing the same thing! Now I'm not comparing myself to him or my book to his, but the process was similar and I suspect it would be to anyone attempting to write a creative work.

Anyway, long story short, even though it was maddening at times I'm really glad I persevered if for no other reason than the appreciation I gained for other authors. All this is to say, if you have a desire to write, do it even if you have to wait until you retire!

Thank you for all of that. I, too, find it interesting to find out what is going through the mind of writer. Movies about authors is one of my favorite genres. (Even fictional ones - hello Secret Window! ha ha.) So thank you for sharing your process.

I saw an interview once with Aaron Sorkin. He explained how, when writing 'A Few Good Men' (the original play) he was working as a waiter and in between serving patrons he would jot down notes on napkins and transcribe them when he got home. Very inspiring but I'm not sure I have that dedication.

So I continue to dream. Congrats again, it's a huge undertaking and an accomplishment to be proud of!

DZ

This is awesome!!! I will definitely have to get a signed copy!

I was looking over some very old geocaching logs and stumbled across this entry...

The coordinates are N 36° 58.585 W 122° 07.099. It was/is in Wilder Ranch State Park just outside of Santa Cruz, CA.

Any sleuths out there that can track this one down from a 14 year old cache log?

Here's a direct link to that cache location.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/KVjsQyHMrr9imSns9

Are you looking for a letterbox there or a geocach there?

Sorry, just making sure which one I'm researching.

thanks,
condo

Letterbox

Edited to add: given the description, the letterbox would have been further east (uphill) than the coordinates I posted.

Perhaps it is this one?

https://www.atlasquest.com/showinfo.php?boxId=39869

Lucy is described as being in a “many trunked bay tree”.

I have not personally looked for this series, but it seems like it would be in that general area.

yeah, that is another one I was thinking about.

Hmm... You might be right. It might be worth a look next time I'm that way. Pretty vague clues tho...

🙃

Thanks for looking that up!