"Following the Clues"
November 09, 2004, 2:07 p.m.

I have a new hobby that I’m excited about. It’s called Letterboxing. I had never heard of letterboxing before but accessed a link to letterboxing.org from the National Treasure movie website.

It's fun and interesting and it's something to do outdoors. It's about finding hidden boxes buried or planted in public locations.

I went out today and found my first letterbox. But before I could find the hidden box, I first had to carve a handmade rubberstamp for myself. I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up the carving materials. Wow, it was so easy! I had no idea!

Then the fun began. I took my new handmade rubberstamp and a little notebook then hunted for the secret box stashed away in a nearby nature center. I followed all the clues and but could not find the hidden box. I was disappointed. I was getting bit up by mosquitoes and getting frustrated. So I plopped myself down on a nearby park bench and re-read the clues. Lo and behold, I found I had misread one of the clues! After retracing my steps and following the clues accurately, it turns out, the box was only another 8 feet way from me! I found the letterbox hidden under a rock at the base of a tree (reminding me of The Shawshank Redemption). The letterbox consisted of a little hummingbird rubberstamp and a rolled up booklet all tucked inside a plastic film canister wrapped in a plastic baggie. I looked in the booklet and the previous entry before mine was a lovely stamp by someone from Vancouver, British Columbia. Then I got to work and stamped the little booklet with my handmade rubberstamp and stamped the notebook I brought with me with the little hummingbird rubberstamp. I had to do all this discreetly so no one would see what I was doing. When I was through, I took care to package it all up and plant the microbox back where I found it.

With the success of finding my first letterbox, I decided to try again.

I went to a park in the medical center area of town to find another box. But no matter how much I tried, I could not find it - I think because I may have misinterpreted the clues. The clues were in Latin and with all my 4 years of studying in Latin class, I thought I understood the clues but obviously I still didn't do a good job translating them.

So, I found one and missed one today. I'll have to get my Latin book out and try again. In any case, it amazed me to find out there are over 100 hidden letterboxes in the Houston area alone and over 12,000 hidden letterboxes in the United States. Looks like I have lots more to find. Yippee!