Hitchhikers

I went out and hit another box this past week, I had planned for three, but the sun is setting so quickly these days and cemeteries and parks generally close at dark. We had a couple of mishaps that took a couple of big chunks out of our window of time, including the old messenger bag I've got my stuff thrown into falling apart in a very literal way. Not that stumbling around in the dark is a great way to find anything anyway, but I might be adding a flashlight to the kit.

In any event, we got an unexpected surprise in the box we did hunt up--our first hitchhiker! A hitchhiker is a sort of surprise letterbox find that travels around; a stamp and logbook to go with it that are sealed in a regular, stationary letterbox. Whoever finds it gets to stamp it with their personal stamp as normal, and then carry it from the location they found it to the next stationary letterbox they find. Ours started in Buffalo, NY, wound its way out in California and ended up here in central Ohio via Dayton and Yellow Springs. I'm not sure where to replant it yet, as I think the other two boxes I had lined out are a bit close, so I'm going to be looking into some boxes up in Union county and drop it off there next time I go visit my family, Thanksgiving probably. Including the hitchhiker, this brings my total number of finds up to four, which is not nearly enough! I'm probably going to send out notes to the planters I found tomorrow and then do some research on clues and really get some hunting done next trip.

Gold Medal hitchhiker by the Doctors B

There's a lengthier explanation of hitchhikers (also known as parasites) here for you to check out, along with links to the etiquette concerning them. I'd hoped to have more to share, but I spent a rare Saturday off tooling around Ohio's wine country and buying Amish cheese with people twenty to thirty years older than me. It was beautiful, we got a lot of great wine and cheese for fairly cheap, but being out in the countryside, all I could think about was how many letterboxes there must be planted all around the place.

With my bag having fallen apart though, I picked up a new one and so the next post will probably be showing of my shiny new bag and a discussion of just what should go into it.