The Aluminum Yucca

 

My kids and I went for a Letterboxing hike in Albuquerque a few weeks ago, and I’m finally getting around to posting the photos and the fun that we had.

The trail we hiked was only about 20 minutes west of our our home, among the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, just above and east of Albuquerque.

These trails are all a part of the Albuquerque Open Space and are open to horseback riders, too. Since this area is 2,000 ft lower in elevation than our home, these trails are a good place to hike or horseback ride in the winter, since they usually don’t get snow, and if they do, just a dusting.

This was a perfect day for a hike…blue skies, sunshine, no wind, and temps in the upper 70s. The trails were smooth and sandy, and only gently hilly.

From these trails we could see Kirtland Air Force Base and the Albuquerque Sunport in the distance, and watch the airplanes taking off and landing.

Along the way, there were lots of boulders to climb and explore.

Boulders bigger than cars are fun to climb.

More boulders beckoned from atop the ridges.

I always have a great time hiking with my kids.

Soon we could see Interstate 40 down below us.

Also down below us we could finally see our destination: The Aluminum Yucca!!

Approaching Albuquerque from the east on I-40, a public art installation welcomes visitors to the city: The Aluminum Yucca.

Since the letterbox was down near the Aluminum Yucca, which required a rugged hike over and through some large boulders, Jen and I chose to stay up on the side of the hill, while the boys hiked down to retrieve the Letterbox.

The Aluminum Yucca is a 22-foot tall sculpture created by artist Gordon Huether using salvaged aluminum fuel tanks from F-15 aircraft. At night, the giant yucca is illuminated by LED panels of slowly varying color, powered by solar energy.

 

Visit this link to see a beautiful nighttime photo: Aluminum Yucca at Night

While we waited for the boys, Jen and I enjoyed the views from above.

Jen especially liked watching all of the semi-trucks and traffic down below on I-40, wondering where they had come from and where they were going.

 

But soon the boys had climbed back up to us, and after stamping in, Jax and Jem took the Letterbox back down to rehide it near the Aluminum Yucca.

 

While waiting on them to finish up so we could head back to our car, we noticed these interesting boulders seemingly blushing with orangey red along their edges.

 

And on all the boulders around us we noticed the sage green and pink colored granite, which created the name for these mountains: Sandia, which means Watermelon in Spanish.

My Dobbie Girl didn’t mind posing for a photo on a granite boulder.

But Mustang Sally was ready to go.

 

It was a beautiful day for a hike and I do enjoy hiking and spending time in the outdoors with my kids.

 

Before we headed back up through the canyon for the drive home, we went out for some dinner in Albuquerque and found one more Letterbox. And on the way home, we were treated to some beautiful views:

The Sandia Mountains

And a pretty sunset

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!
        

A Tribute for a Very Special Letterboxer Friend

 

I just discovered today while checking into Atlas Quest, to find out if any new letterboxes had been placed around my area, that a very special letterboxer, who I had the pleasure of meeting in person last October, passed away last week, on April 3.

Her passing really made me so sad, and even though I had only met her in person one time, we had chatted so many times via e-mail that I considered us friends.  

I met this wonderful, warm-hearted, friendly, spirited woman in person on October 26, 2011. Her Letterboxing Trail Name was Hi Desert, which was perfect since she lived in Santa Fe.

We had been trying to coordinate a meet-up for months during one of her visits when she drove down to Albuquerque for her chemo treatments. We finally were able to coordinate a meet-up and one day we decided to meet at the Yellow Sub in Albuquerque, where she wanted to find a letterbox that I had placed there last year. As soon as we met, I immediately felt like I had known her for years. And even though she was such a tiny thing, only about 5' tall, and I was an entire foot tall than her, I never felt awkward. We talked for such a long time while enjoying our meal together, that we almost didn't make it out to look for a new letterbox that had just been placed about a week earlier. But we did and I'm so glad, because it was such a fun time enjoying a hike and working out the clues together. Her laughter and her ability to find joy was infectious. And I also enjoyed her curiosity and sense of adventure.

On her Atlas Quest profile page, she included this quote, which seems very fitting, as that is how she lived her life:

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift - that's why we call it the "present." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

As a tribute to her, I want to share my blog post from that day we spent together just 6 months ago:

Another Dam Letterbox

 

 

Hi Desert, my dear friend, you touched my life and I will never forget you.

The Adventure Continues, Too…..

 

We left off in my last post: The Adventure Continues, with our arrival at our House of Horrors Cabin within Dan Nicholas Park in Salisbury, North Carolina.

We thought we’d just unroll our sleeping bags and lay out our pillows, after a busy, long day and previous night, and just fall into blissful sleep. Nah. The Letterboxing Adventure was not over.

The hosts of the next day’s event had set up two series of Letterboxes to search for inside the cabin.

So, after visiting with some fellow Letterboxers and doing some exchanges (exchanging personal stamp images), we settled in to finding the first series “The House of Horrors”, which included 7 letterboxes hidden around the cabin with a clever set of clues to follow.

 

The boys and I had a blast with all the props that were used and placed beside the letterboxes.

There was a snake under the bed (guarding a letterbox!)

All the clue reading, letterbox searching, stamping in, and loads of laughter were great at keeping us going even though we were already very tired.

After we found that series, we discovered the second series, which was called The FireFly Trail. That series, 6 little letterboxes (film canisters and camo covered ziplock baggies) with cute stamps inside, was attached to 2 strings of lights, was supposed to be placed outside, but with the rain and cold weather was moved indoors instead. The string of lights was actually strung around and over the bunkbeds, which made for a cozy nightlight when it was finally time to go to sleep.

 

But it wasn’t time to go to sleep yet!

Our neighbors in the cabin next door were fellow Letterboxers who had driven down from Virginia. And with them, they had brought somewhere between 15-30 letterboxes and hand-carved stamps, and had placed them on the front porch of their cabin and hidden them all around the outside of their cabin(even hanging on a tree!), too.

Jax and Jem had a ball heading outside in the dark of night to locate the many different and creatively designed letterboxes and bring them back to me to stamp in to our logbook. That kept us busy for another hour or so.

We really got a kick out of this particular letterbox and it’s clever, appropriate wooden box and humorously themed hand-carved stamps inside.

But finally sometime around midnight we had had enough and were too tired to do anything but sleep. I must say that the gently falling rain on the cabin’s metal roof was a wonderful sound to fall asleep to and we all were asleep almost as soon as our heads hit our pillows.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Our day started at 8:30am the next morning and by 9am Letterboxers started showing up to hunt for the 2 series of letterboxes in the House of Horrors and we were able to do a few exchanges with some of them before finally heading out to get some breakfast and do some more Letterboxing around town before The Night of the Letterboxing Dead Event began at noon.

(There was a letterbox placed in The National Cemetery in Salisbury. We spent an hour just reading the plaques, exploring, and learning more about the fascinating, but terribly tragic history of this place.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

After finding a couple letterboxes and exploring the historic downtown area, we grabbed some lunch and made our way to a lakeside park for the event, where Zombies were already wandering around doing exchanges, hunting for letterboxes…and brains.

(Yeah…that’s me…Zombified Cowgirl!)

We got our own costumes on and got ourselves all Zombie-fied at the make-up table that had been set up, visited with some fellow letterboxers, did some exchanges, logged in Event Letterboxes, posed for photos, and then, with the clues we were provided with, headed out on the trails to do some more Letterboxing.

(Jax, Me and Jem. They received their official certificates from The Zombie State University after completing The Zombie Crossing Trail Letterbox Series!)

  

Everyone enjoyed both of my twinlings’ costumes, but especially Jem’s Goth look, which Zombie-fied really well.

Jem pretending to trim Papa Wolf’s hair (looks like he cut a little too much)…..ala ~ Edward Scissorhands.

  

Jax made friends with one of the Hosts, who happened to be wearing a similar costume. He fondly referred to Jax as being his “Brother from a Different Mother” because they were both dressed like redneck farmers in their overalls.

Such a friendly fellow, he made us laugh a lot!

There were also a couple of teen girls that we had met the night before at Dan Nicholas Park. They had driven down from Virginia, and one of the girls was an exchange student from Denmark (the girl beside Jax). The two girls and my boys had fun helping us adults search for Letterboxes for part of the day.

(My boys with the girls with their Mom, trail name "Castle Keepers")

There were 2 series, with 6-8 letterboxes, placed in a wonderful park and garden just across the street from the lakeside park, and there was 1 series, with 10 letterboxes, placed in the lakeside park, and another series, with 7 letterboxes placed in a cemetery across town.

(The letterbox below was placed behind a granite crypt in the cemetery. We liked the creative hiding place beneath the carved out floral foam and the hand carved stamp image was perfectly themed.)

(We really had a great time with that cemetery series, especially the creative boxes and stamps. Also it was just such creepy fun to be letterboxing in a cemetery while dressed like Zombies)

There were also various single letterboxes hidden in the lakeside park, too. All of the letterboxes were quick and easy to find, located on beautiful flat trails….so different from what we are used to here in the desert southwest, where our trails are rugged, rocky and steep.

We were surprised at how quickly we were able to find letterboxes and how many we were able to find by the end of the day! Even after almost 5 years of Letterboxing in over 10 states, the most we have ever found during a weekend of straight boxing was maybe 20.

All told, at the end of the weekend, we found a total of 81 letterboxes during our visit to North Carolina and South Carolina! Incredible!

(We enjoyed all of the old historic buildings and unique architecture in Salisbury. Check out this home. Even the porch balusters and railings are carved out of stone!)

Anyway, even after a full day of wandering around town letterboxing all over the place, our day of fun wasn’t over.

For dinner, about 40 of us Letterboxers, many who were still dressed as Zombies, met up at a local restaurant for a great Country Style Meal and some more personal stamp exchanges.

Then afterwards we headed out for an evening of Night-boxing! (after getting lost way out in the boonies near Gold Hill, and The Wolf Family coming to our rescue!) This was our first time Night-boxing and we were so excited! Wandering through the dark down thickly forested trails, searching for reflective tape or Fire Tacks, that mark the location of Letterboxes, is so much fun!

(We had taken off most of our Zombie-wear by this time, but we still looked pretty creepy!)

The 6 letterbox series we searched for were all Halloween/Spooky Movie themed and included incredibly detailed hand-carved stamps. True treasures to be able to stamp into our logbooks.

Our friends, The Wolf Family (their Letterbox Trail Name), including Mama Wolf, Papa Wolf and two of her 3 cubs, and also Grandma Wolf, accompanied us and showed us the ropes of Night-boxing, and then afterwards we were to follow them to their house about an hour south, in Charlotte. They had been generous and kind enough to offer their home to us to spend the night, so we could head out the next morning to fly back to Albuquerque.

(That’s Mama Wolf in the center)

But before we settled into The Wolf Family’s Den for a good night’s sleep, Mama Wolf took us to an old historic cemetery, just a few miles from her house to do some more Night-boxing and search for one of her letterboxes. She had placed this one near an old slave cemetery, forgotten and abandoned in the forest, with spooky sunken graves (which happened when the old wooden boxes the slaves had been buried in, disintegrated over time) behind an old stone wall that separated the slave cemetery from the main cemetery.

One of the highlights of our Night-boxing foray happened in the cemetery when a handsome, huge buck with an impressive rack of antlers, startled us as he wandered around the gravestones. Alas, it was too dark and he was too far away to get a picture, but Mama Wolf managed to take a photo of me and my twinlings within the old slave cemetery.

And Mama Wolf gave us a fascinating and fun history lesson about North Carolina during the Civil War.

It was a terrific way to end a fantastic weekend of Letterboxing with new friends in North and South Carolina.

~~~~~~~~

The next day started very early and was very long. It was spent standing by for seats on airplanes, while waiting and napping in the airport. The flights were horribly full and we ended up not getting on two different flights we had been standing by for, and we didn’t make it home until after 10pm, when we managed to snag the last 3 seats on the next to the last flight out of Phoenix to Albuquerque.

This photo was taken in the Charlotte Airport.

And a photo of a very cute service dog in the Phoenix Airport.

A photo of some snow covered mountains as we flew over New Mexico on our way to Phoenix.

 

And finally a photo as we flew over the city of Phoenix on the way home to Albuquerque.

Not the best way to end such an awesome weekend, but we can’t wait to do it again (the visiting, letterboxing, exploring part of our travels…….Definitely! The flying part? Not so much)