Singing Frogs

Location: Portland, Ionia County, MI
Planted By: Familyof6
Find Date: 6/29/2007
Find #: 77

Comments: I went alone to this box. It was getting late in the day and I wanted to make another stop before it got dark, so I cheated and "drove the clues" most of the way. The placement was really cool and the stamp is fantastic! I wish I had time to get the rest of Familyof6's boxes in this area. I'll have to come back.

M-166's Scenic Gem

Location: Mystery, Ionia County, Mi
Planted By: familyof6
Find Date: n/a
Find #: n/a

Comments: Another box that I went to alone. Again, I found the place, couldn't break the code. I used to think that I was good any ciphers and such. But apparently not! This place is truly a gem, though. Gorgeous location. I'll keep working on it and figure it out eventually!

RR #1 - Pere Marquette

Location: Midland, Midland County, MI
Planted By: Windrose
Find Date: 6/17/2007
Find #: 73

Comments: Found the first box in this series. We weren't in the areas of the other boxes, but will have to make a trip back up north to find the others. Very cool "monopoly" box and stamp. Major, major drama from PoPo's daughter because we refused to let her play in the really cool fountain! This walk was a lot longer than we expected and it was super hot! Really cool place, though.

Pop Pop's Gone Fishing

Location: Midland, Midland County, MI
Planted By: LindaFay
Find Date: 6/17/2007
Find #: 72

Comments: Excellent stamp! Very nice tribute box for LindaFay's dad, planted near his final resting spot. Very ingenious "box" and planting spot! Love the log book, too. We appropriately visited this box on Father's Day.

Duck Hunters Memorial

Location: Midland, Midland County, MI
Planted By: Mackinaw
Find Date: 6/17/2007
Find #: 71

Comments: Had a really hard time finding the starting spot for this box. I knew where I was supposed to go, but not exactly where it was. Got off the main highway way too soon and stopped at the wrong trail head at first. Nice rail trail system! Very, very busy! Had to wait a long time for people to leave so we could pull the box out. Got a little confused by the small trail, but eventually found it. Had to wait a long time again for other people to leave so we could put it back. This should have been a quickie stop, but it took about 45 minutes! Fortunately, it is a very pleasant place. Great view.

The Old Rugged Cross

Location: Reed City, Osceola County, MI
Planted By: Thumb's Up!
Find Date: 6/16/2007
Find #: 68

Comments: We went up to Evart for the weekend to visit with PoPoBullyGirl's family. While "up north" we decided to do some letterboxing. So, we headed over to Reed City. Met some other letterboxers in the parking lot! That's a first for us! You'd think that would happen in the Metro Detroit area, not up here in the country. Nice stamp and location.

Oh, yeah! I also planted the Only You... part 2 box somewhere in this county today! I wonder where it is??? Hmm.

The "Duck" stops here

Location: Mill Race Park, Commerce, Oakland County, MI
Planted By: PoPoBullyGirl
Find Date: 6/15/2007
Find #: 66

Comments: PoPoBullyGirl's second plant! Cool roadside park. I never noticed it before. Another really cool life-sized stamp! There's a great scrapbooking/stamping store right around the corner from here. I think you will come out behind the store if you continue along the trail rather than turning around to return to your car.

Knight in Shining Armor

Location: WW Knight Nature Preserve, Perrysburg, Wood County, OH
Planted By: Mom and kids
Find Date: 6/3/2007
Find #: 64

Comments: Another box found on the way home from the gathering. Cool nature preserve! We "broke the law" and continued on the boardwalk even though there was a "closed due to flooding/repairs" sign blocking the way. We didn't run into any problems, though. Found a Detroit Tigers hitchhiker. After we found the box, we went back into the nature center to look around. There was a sign in there that all of the trails are under video surveillance! I wonder if they caught us on camera going past that sign or stamping in??? Yikes! No one yelled at us, so if they did catch us on tape, they didn't watch in in real-time. Not to gross you out, but beware of the goose poop while you're here! It's everywhere!

Fun in the Sun

Location: Perrysburg, Wood County, OH
Planted By: roXXzilla
Find Date: 6/3/2007
Find #: 63

Comments: Another stop on the way home from the gathering. Started pouring! Very busy park. Misinterpreted the clues at first and tried to find the box in the wrong place at first, even though there weren't enough benches. Finally found it, but had to wait an eternity for this dog walker guy to go away.

1950's Disney Series

Location: Lewis Center, Delaware County, OH
Planted By: bunnyslippers
Find Date: 6/2/2007
Find #: 54-58

Comments: Very cute, 5 box series right near the gathering location. Accidentally found box #3 the night before while looking for a place to plant my box. Didn't stamp in until the next day. When we went to "officially" find that box, it was MISSING!! I couldn't believe it. But, while we were stamping into box 4, we saw Trailstompers and Trailtracker bringing box 3 back.

Peace With Nature

Location: Rochester Hills, Oakland County, Mi
Planted By: Trailtroll (adopted)
Find Date: 5/5/2007
Find #: 51

Comments: We divined our way to this box. We found the Knowledge is Pleasant box first which is off the same Rail Trail. A lot of the landmarks for this box have changed, but we were able to figure it out after a while. There was a whole group of people hanging out. Took forever for them to finally leave so we could find the box. Cute little stamp. Nice place! See, this is really close to the place that creeped me out, but now I think it's really cool! It's all a matter of first impressions and how you view it, I guess. If the Knowledge box clues brought us in the back way, rather than in by that building and weird lake, it would have been much better! There was a nesting duck really close to the trail!

Knowledge is Pleasant

Location: Rochester Hills, Oakland County, MI
Planted By: Lake Norcentra Trail
Find Date: 5/5/2007
Find #: 50

Comments: Maybe it was because it was late in the day and getting darker, maybe it was because we entered the college next to a building that was in disrepair, maybe it was the weird island in the middle of the lake with the large falling down cross, maybe it was all those things together. But, this place creeped me out! The BBQ pit was pretty cool, but again kind of creepy when in context with everything else. This would be a great place for one of those B or C level horror flicks. In the back of my mind, I can see that this place could be really beautiful with the gully, trees and river. But, something about it struck us wrong that day! And to top it all off, the stamp was a pre-made auto-inked stamper thing that just had words on it. It was a pretty stupid stamp. In general, I really don't mind store bought stamps, as long as they're artistic or fit with the theme. And this did "technically" fit with the placement at the school. But, it was really pretty lame. Sorry, no offense to the placers!

Guardians' Point

Location: Rochester Hills, Oakland County, Mi
Planted By: TrailTroll (adopted)
Find Date: 5/5/2007
Find #: 48

Comments: WOW! We had a hard time with this! You really have to be observant and think outside of the box on this one. We skipped ahead in the clues and managed to find our way to the box, though. Nice memorial!

Letterbox of Piglet

Location: Auburn Hills, Oakland County, MI
Planted By: TrailTroll (adopted)
Find Date: 5/5/2007
Find #: 47

Comments: Pretty cool park! Fun clues to follow along with. We got tripped up on a few of the clues here and there, but plodded along and made our way.

Chief Pontiac

Location: Hawthorne Park, Pontiac, Oakland County, MI
Planted By: TrailTroll
Find Date: 5/5/2007
Find #: 46

Comments: (I just realized while writing this blog that we found this box on its 2 year anniversary!) Very cool stamp! We never did see the rocket ship! The trail head is basically invisible from where you park. The place was crowded and we thought we looked like jackasses walking toward the tree line where there appeared to be nothing. Then, all of a sudden you could see the trail! Cool. I saw some really cool plant here. It looked dead, but then there were these flowers or leaves bursting into life off the dead ends. Very bizarre. I posted a picture, anyone know what this is? Had another run in with a garter snake! Getting used to them now. Good clues. Quick find, and still very muddy!

Season's Letterbox - Spring Box

Location: Orchard Lake, Oakland County, MI
Planted By: Sealpoint
Find Date: 4/22/2007
Find #: 45

Comments: Today was 2nd attempt day. Went back to look for the 4th box in this series that alluded us back in December. We were successful this time! We both specifically remember looking in the place that we found it, so we are 100% convinced that the box was not in place while we were looking for it the first time. Unfortunately, the logbooks were filling up and the placer replaced them right after we were there in December, so we couldn't tell for sure if someone else was out there the same day as us. We saw other people in the park, but no one was in the area while we were looking for the spring box and no one looked suspicious! I guess we'll never know the truth about what happened. But, I SWEAR it wasn't there. Anyway, glad it was there this time.

Wandering in the Wetlands (box 3)

Location: West Bloomfield Nature Preserve, West Bloomfield, Oakland County, MI
Planted By: Trail Troll
Find Date: 4/22/2007
Find #: 44

Comments: WOW, Camo tape rocks. We did manage to find this box on our second attempt, but it was HARD! That damn box was right out in the open, in plain sight and it took us forever to find it. There are a bunch of trees that could maybe fit the clues, so we weren't positive of the exact place we should look. But, we searched and searched and searched around and under and near every single possible tree in this area. This was the exact same area we searched and searched and searched back in November on our first attempt. We almost gave up a second time even though TT had confirmed that it was in place. Then, lo and behold, there it was!! I found it! Sweet victory! I swear it wasn't hidden or covered by anything but the tape. It was nearly impossible to see. Very cute stamp, well worth the second attempt. I didn't even fall and hurt myself this time! WooHoo! The woodland creature isn't the one I was expecting to see, but he's cuter!

The Nose Knows - version 2.0

Location: Robert Long Park, Walled Lake, Oakland County, MI
Planted By: TrailTroll
Find Date: 4/22/2007
Find #: 43

Comments: Very cute stamp! Very nice park and fun clues. This is a "revamped" box of the original box that was planted here by Delirium. That box moved out of state with Delirium. TrailTroll liked it so much she resurrected it. I never saw the original box, but I'm sure this does it justice!

Strongheart

Location: Maybury State Park, Northville, Wayne County, MI
Planted By: clickermom3
Find Date: 3/18/2007
Find #: 42

Comments: Very cool stamp! Found this one on our second attempt. Someone found this box last week on the same day we were looking for it. We originally thought the hiding place was frozen, but it turns out that place wasn't the right place after all. We did look in the place that it really was too, but it wasn't there last week. So, now we think that the box was "checked out" when we were there looking for it. Had to come back for Lovebirds and Laika anyway so no big deal. Great stamp. Worth the return trip.

The Lion King

Location: Maybury State Park, Northville, Wayne County, MI
Planted By: J-Walkers
Find Date: 3/11/2006
Find #: 39

Comments: Another lesson for us about reading clues. This time we took them too literally and got off track. Eventually found the right place. Very sloppy, muddy spring day. Also tried to find Lovebirds, Laika and Strongheart boxes today, but no luck. We were trying to find all three of these boxes simultaneously. That didn't work out so well. We accidentally followed the wrong trail numbers for Lovebirds and Laika and couldn't find the right places. The place that we thought the Strongheart box was hidden was still frozen solid and we couldn't get in.