Searching for the Lorax

I took my kids out hiking recently to do some letterboxing just down the road from our house. I love it when fellow letterboxers place a letterbox close-by, so we don’t have to drive far.
I forgot my camera (gasp!), but I did have my cell phone. So don’t expect much in the way of photo quality. 
We had never hiked in this area before, so it was wonderful that this letterbox brought us to someplace new that is close enough to hike (or ride my horse) anytime we want to.
This area is off of Bartolo Baca Rd in the Manzanos and has a wonderful pull-through parking area, roomy enough for horse trailers (you know that I am always scoping out new places to ride!).
(And there are perfectly-sized mounting boulders right at the trailhead, too)

And even though the main trail traveled through a rocky arroyo, a secondary trail went straight up onto a beautiful, tree-lined, mostly flat, sandy path, which already had hoof prints on them!

We were in this National Forest area to search for a series of letterboxes called The Lorax.
(Jen doing her best impersonation of The Lorax)

There were 3 boxes with 3 separate puzzle-shaped stamps that formed a complete image of The Lorax in the woods, when they were stamped together in our log books.

We really enjoyed the very creative clues, wonderful stamps and beautiful location.

It was great to be out on a hike with my kids. And they seemed to enjoy letterboxing with their Mama and exploring a new trail, too.

The hike started off sunny, but by the time we were done finding all the boxes, clouds had rolled in and as we piled into my van, the first raindrops fell from the sky.

Of course, it never really did rain, but you just never know with our mountain weather, so we were happy to be off the trails when the skies grew dark and cloudy.
We had a great day!