The Quest!

We found a great surprise waiting for us when we got up this morning! Nitrocat had costumes all laid out and a wonderful adventure planned for us. I got to be a Knight in Shining Armour! I was Sir Frankalot and I had to rescue Princess Pinky from the Sorcerer, Tweeter the Magnificent. We had lots of fun acting out the story in our costumes.
Since we aren't going to the Faire, Nitrocat decided to take us on a "more local Quest". We had already gone and gotten "The Quest Begins", the first box in the King's Ransom series here in Kendall county. Now we also got to get the images from the other boxes. The whole series has the adventurers defeating a dragon, rescuing a princess and receiving a reward. You have to answer a lot of questions about jewels, royalty, and dragons to find the letterboxes. Nitrocat made us promise that we wouldn't tell the secrets about the series though. She said they are Mystery boxes and they are her "planter's choice" or favorite boxes of all.
What a great ending to a fun stay here in Newark! I'm off to Pancake Aficionado's tomorrow!
I'll write when I arrive.
FtM

The Storm

You should have seen the storm we had this evening! There was so much lightning! One of the strikes was really close and loud. It popped a couple of light bulbs and killed one of the fans here in the house. And it messed up the colors on the TV too!
Nitrocat broke the news to the other two today that they are not going to be able to go to the Ren Faire. I think Pinky was the most disappointed, but then Nitrocat told us that she had a surprise instead. She said it wasn't quite as much fun as the fair, but she thought we'd like it anyway. She said she had a few details to finish after we went to bed. She also told me that if I wanted to stay one more day so that I could enjoy the surprise too, she thought it would be okay. That means that I won't be leaving tomorrow like I planned, but she thought I'd be ready to go on Wednesday for sure.
Good night!
FtM

July 23, 2007 The Missing Post

Hi, Mom!
It has been so busy for the last few days that I have not had a chance to write about our activities. Tweeter, Pinky and I sat down and decided that each one of us would write about a different part of our adventures. I get to tell you about going to Nelson Lake.
On Friday, Stacy wanted to try to get the last boxes she needed to reach her goal of 100. The sitter she had lined up for the kittens was sick, and they ended up getting to come too. We headed up to Batavia to a preserve called Dick Young. There were two boxes there for us to find. Following the clues, we headed off around the lake. It was a beautiful day, there were butterflies everywhere and lots of people were out with their dogs. We had Kirby with us. (Nitrocat says that the stamp that will become his personal traveller is in a postal ring right now. It is almost done, and she hopes it makes it home before we have to leave so that we can have the image.) There was a field of wildflowers in bloom and we saw lots of birds too.

We walked and walked and walked and walked and walked. We ended up going all the way around the lake! Both boxes ended up being AWOL, so it was a bit of a disappointment for all of us. Stacy tried to help us look on the bright side and remember all of the neat things we had seen. She said the park was worth visiting even without the letterboxes. Later we found out that the trial around the lake is over 3 miles long! She also told us that we had gone the wrong way around the lake. If we had gone the other direction, we would have only walked about a mile looking for the letterboxes. She made us promise that we wouldn't tell the kittens. Poor J had blisters! I wish I could have carried her.
More later!
FtM

What a time!

Hello, Family!
We had quite a time this weekend! It was very hot and humid, but we spent the day recovering yesterday and feel fine now.
Early Saturday morning, we all left with Nitrocat and headed up to meet some of her friends near Rockford. We had a great day and found 17 letterboxes! That means that we finally got to help Nitrocat reach 100 finds. She also found her first cuckoo clue that day and we were close enough to go and find the letterbox that went with it too. That was exciting!
My favorite place was the Atwood Park and Education Center. They had some Birds of Prey in cages and we saw several large owls, a kestrel and a Bald Eagle. The Eagle was yelling at us and the Great Horned Owl hissed at us. I don't think they liked being disturbed even though we tried to be quiet and move slowly. Nitrocat took our picture by the Eagle. She said it was funny because there is a little poison ivy in the picture too and that was appropriate since we were dodging it all day.
We also went to the Goose Barn, which is a rubber stamping store owned by a letterboxer named Dumpster Diva. She wasn't there, so we didn't get to exchange with her, but we did get the two boxes at the store. We had our picture taken in front of the barn door. Can you see us by the handle?
We saw lots of other great things, and Tweeter and Pinky Poo have written about some of them. It was fun to meet Pastor's Wife and Prairie Dog and see all of the wonderful stamps carved by Krait and a couple of other people.
My time here in Illinois is almost over, I guess. I'm a little sad because I've had so much fun. But Nitrocat said that she won't be letterboxing as much next month because she has to get ready for school, so I guess it is time to move on. It doesn't look like it is going to work out for me to go to the Renaissance Faire with them. Oh, well. Where am I going next?
Frankie

What Boxing Buddies do on rainy days...

Hi, Mom!
Just a quick note to let you know what I'm up to. Yesterday, we got to exchange with Nitrocat's two letterboxing nephews who live next door. Today, it was stormy and yucky out, so we spent some time stamping some of the postals that Stacy has here. She said that they are "in transition" from being postals to being planted as traditionals. My favorite was "The real story of the 3 little pigs" because it has a funny story to go with it. She said the story is also on the clue page on AQ.
We hope to get to go boxing on Thursday if the weather is decent.
FtM

Box Maintenance and Meeting new friends

Hi, Mom!
Well, this has been a maintenance weekend so far. We have gone to check on 7 of Nitrocat's boxes. One, from the King's Ransom series, needed some revision to the clue for the first box. The next four were at Silver Springs where she said lots of people had been looking for a missing lady. She wanted to make sure that they hadn't found her letterboxes in the process. And they hadn't! Then we replanted the Favoritten. It was requested that she find a new hiding spot by the caretakers of the cemetery where it had been planted. There was some vandalism (Nitrocat says Not by letterboxers, though!) and they wanted to eliminate any extra traffic. And last, we rescued the Lake Mermaid because Nitrocat accidentally planted it on private property. We still have to find a new spot for that box though.
It was alot of work, but we got some neat stamps. Some of them were the first ones that Nitrocat ever carved. We got to see a natural spring, meet Combine Kid and Fast Track and see some really freaky looking spiders! Stacy says that they are the ones that spin the huge webs across the trails that we walk through sometimes. She said if my antlers were bigger, she'd let me go first on the trails. Since they aren't big enough though, she showed us how to pick a good walking stick to use instead.
We also got to stamp two fleas that the Yorkshire Tortoise sent from the UK! They are alot like our hitchhikers, but can go in any kind of box.
Well, the other buddies need to use the computer too, so I'd better go. More later!
Hey, did Starling123 get my postcard in time?
Love,
FtM

Boxing in Romeoville

Hi, Mom!
Yesterday was an amazing day! Nitrocat decided to take advantage of the great weather and take all of us letterboxing in Romeoville. We found 5 letterboxes. Three of them were from the Adult Swim Series, and one was from the Monty Python Holy Grail series. That one was in a great location even if there was a really steep and slippery hill to climb. We ate great food at a little hamburger stand for lunch and went back when we were finished boxing for an ice cream snack on the way home. Megan took great care of me and helped me stamp in my logbook. We also stopped at the Post Office so that I could mail my postcard to Robin.
We looked up the dragonfly that we took a picture of and found out that it is an Ebony Jewelwing Damselfly. We saw more of them today. Tweeter kept trying to eat them!
We are resting up today, but we might try to go again tomorrow while the nice weather holds.
Love,
FtM