A Purple Start to the Day

Since the kids are older and into other things, it is harder for me to get out on adventures because I don't like to go alone.  So when Blue Delft asked if I wanted to hit the trail I jumped at the chance.

Our first stop took us to a winter's blossom in a neat little old cemetery.  What a super way to start off the day.

From there we headed over to the castle.  We noticed that hopping across the stream was easier than anticipated. And with a little help from my guide, I crawled to freedom through the window.  Wow, what a great experience and what a wonderful gift.  Truly a labor of love.

Stony Brook

Over at the herring run in Brewster we had a beautiful walk. There's a fantastic little picnic area with a delightful vantage point.  Although I've been to this spot several times before, I hadn't taken in the view from this spot before.  I greatly enjoyed the local color.






Unfortunately, the herring wasn't spawning today. But the spot was gorgeous and we were glad to walk around and check things out.

The grist mill is also quite scenic and not to be missed!

Dizzy? Maybe. Itchy? No!

It was great to avoid the poison ivy at Kent's Point!  I enjoyed the spinney too!

Adventures in Eastham

Of course we were familiar with the Evergreen Cemetery. Not only had we been here before but it is just across the street from Arnold's and that's hard to miss.  A lot of people love Arnold's but I don't believe they serve pasta.  More like lobster rolls and fried clam strips.

As we were exploring the cemetery, we encountered a coyote.  That was pretty exciting for us.  Fortunately, it didn't take much interest in us but we were a bit spooked to see it out in broad daylight.

Of all the time I've spent on the Cape exploring and I've never met the three sisters. I have never even heard of them.  Until now.

They were very cool to visit. We will have to return in the off season so we can get to the images that eluded us today.

On our way out we spotted this guy making a trek across the road.  We stopped and provided crossing guard services to make sure he was safe. We don't see box turtles around like we used to!

Snowy

After dropping the kids off at the yacht club, I walked across the street and met Snowy.  An adorable little guy in a beautiful spot.

No Luck in Lancaster

One of my kids had day camp at Millersville University so I decided to seek out the highly recommended (and anticipated) Safari Man attractions while I had a few hours to kill.  I found the cemetery with no problem and located the Viet Nam Memorial immediately.

But then things weren't so easy....

I followed the clues but it was obvious that some major pruning and landscaping work had been done very recently.  There was a finder just 10 days ago.  Unfortunately for me, looks like I just missed it.

The box must've gone missing with all of the recent landscaping.

I quickly texted Blue Delft who confirmed along with her partner in crime, idlemoon, that they remembered the box being hidden under some large arborvitae type of bushes.  Now only two small bushes remain at the back of the circle around the memorial.

Bummer.  I heard it was superb.






And between that, the fresh grave a worker had just begun to dig, the creepiness of being (kind of) alone in a very large graveyard, and the promise of stinging nettles and poison ivy guarding the other boxes, I decided to move on.

I'll be back in the off season to catch up to the ones I passed on today.

Thanks for planting, Safari Man.

Here's a 2008 photo I found of the memorial from online.
 I can see many other bushes that are no longer there.

The adventure was an interesting one none-the-less!  

Long Overdue

There was a time in my letterboxing "career" when I would have set out within a day or at most, a weekend of a new box being planted in my area.  Boy have times changed.  Now my letterboxing habit takes a very back seat to many other things.  But since I was having a sad day realizing that my kids are growing up way too fast, my (no longer a) baby decided to take pity on me and he agreed to hike with me in my favorite local park.

More than a year ago, I was along on the plant for hop along home but it seemed that I was not an official finder until I found it on my own. Which I did today.

Then Hot Lava and I scaled some rocks including a case of rock stairs.

Yikes!...Oh Fudge!  A fawn must've been resting nearby because it jumped right out in front of me and made me scream.  A few moments later I screamed again when I lifted the SPOR to find the box and a snake slithered over the box.   I was jumpy all the rest of the hike.

We had a little trouble finding the protruding "goggly eyes." It is funny to me how many trees I can construe into "protruding googly eyes" and how many of such trees have corresponding V trees with kick stands!  HA! We did persevere and were rewarded with a beautiful delft tile!

It was a super day after all!