Neither rain nor snow....

It started off as a really gloomy, drizzly, cold day today. Not the kind of day you would jump up out of bed and want to go letterboxing. Except that today, I had already made plans with lionsmane and rubberpeace to go letterboxing and find what would be my 1000th find. The 3 of us have a sort of pact that we will make special boxes for each other for our 1000th finds (or at least to celebrate our 1000th finds). I know a lot of you don't like to count your finds and that's all well and good, but we Santa Feans like to count ours! It just seems to be fun and a cause for celebration. I'll never forget my 100th find - at Bridal Veil Falls, it was a letterbox by KAT. #500 was a box by allemyn at Union Station in Denver. And 1000 was to be a box by lionsmane. I had planted his 1000th box and now he was doing the same for me. He had secretly dropped off a lovely packet of clues on Sunday-







By packet of clues, I mean specifically that there were FIVE puzzles I had to solve.


Thank goodness they weren't too too hard. It would have been embarrassing to have to ask for help on my special box.... But luckily, the hardest puzzle had a hint that helped a lot. I figured out all the puzzles and was ready by Sunday evening to go look for the box. But we had to wait for a day when we could all go look for it together (lionsmane, who wanted to photograph the event, and rubberpeace, who had contributed to the box). So today was the day.

So - I bounded out of bed. I knew that the box had a mid-century modern (MCM) theme and the name of the box was "Dreams of Eames." Perfect for me (who is MCM obsessed and lives in a MCM house). I knew there were going to be stamps by a variety of letterboxers in it. I couldn't wait.

The first stop was to meet lionsmane up at St. John's College. There was a box there that I had planted / relocated recently and he hadn't gotten it yet. I went with him to find the box,


and then we went over to rubberpeace's house to pick her up. Then we all went over to the Mystery Location of "my" box. We followed the clues and had no trouble finding the box. It was threatening to rain and the ground was still wet from the rain last night, so we took the box to the place we had chosen to go to lunch nearby. There we were able to spread out and look at all the goodies. And have a really fabulous lunch. There were amazing stamps from 8 different letterboxers that I know, all with a midcentury modern theme. Wonderful! And there was a great FF certificate, a Dreams of Eames LTC, little starburst magnets and as an added bonus, lionsmane had carved a return address stamp with my address and a carving of the front of my MCM house!! Wow Wow Wow!! What a box!


While we stamped in at the restaurant, it poured outside. We were glad to have the rain, but we were also glad to be inside, out of it all. Much better to be inside, eating pie....:-)

After lunch, the rain had stopped again so lionsmane and I stopped and got another letterbox we hadn't found yet (a bonus box called Hi Desert Spring). I was on a roll and having a terrific time with all these great carvings so when lionsmane and I dropped off rubberpeace at her house, rubberpeace and I decided to continue letterboxing and go find Beatles Series #15 "Revolution" (lionsmane had already found it). The weather was holding out and even though the mountains were fogged in (or snowed in), the sun was starting to come out where we were. (There's an old saying in Santa Fe: Don't like the weather? Wait 5 minutes.) We had a great time finding our last box of the day.


Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Dreams of Eames box, and to my letterboxing pal lionsmane especially. He put in a ton of work on this box, and I hear he learned a lot about MCM design in the process! :-) I had a blast figuring out the puzzles and looking at each little stamp treasure in the box. Way too much fun. I encourage you all to do the puzzles and find this amazing box!

Rubberpeace will be at 1000 soon and lionsmane and I are already putting the finishing touches on her special box. Can't wait until she finds it. That'll be another post. But in the meantime - thanks to everyone for inspiring me creatively with your great letterboxes and for leading me on such great letterboxing adventures. I love love love this hobby and it's all because of your creativity that makes it such a grand adventure. You just never know what treasures you're going to find. Love and hugs to you all!!!

- from Astro D and her fabulous MCM cat, Eames, who now has a letterbox named after him :-)