Southerly Wind

This past weekend was a real pleasure spent with my dearest RGBisMe. My week had been filled with early mornings spent volunteering at WPSU radio pledge drive. The fund raising was going really well but the early hours, 6 AM until noon, were starting to wear me down.

The week prior, Maga11 had alerted me to the fact that our South of the Border letterbox seemed to be missing so a run down to Juniata County to replace it would make a nice drive. I had carved up a new image and with a a replacement log book we could make sure everything was in order for future seeker.

We decided to add a few detours and extend our trip to make a day of it. RGBisMe really wanted to find the Lewsitown Narrows Canal Park letterbox that I had hidden with the help of Maga11 and Toolman Luke the past summer. That would be our first stop.

The walk along the Juniata would have been very lovely with all of the early spring flowers except a fierce wind blew steadily. We saw some low lying lightly colored Dutchman's Breaches here an there along the trail as we started out. The trail had some other visitors and we got to meet the president of some Juniata trails society who told us that this was set to be the day of their annual walk on the trail.

RGBisMe found the letterbox without any problem and he picked up a really cool hitch hiker there. We were able to move it, as well as 3 others, along that day. We walked out the canal trail the way we had come in, packing out two huge bags of trash but barely making a dent in all of the river and highway litter.

We maintained a mystery box of ours that was in good shape but quite lonely and went on to replace South of the Border. RGBisMe determined that rock was still in place and went to find another one or two. As I brushed some debris aside to seat the replacement letterbox I touched what felt like another rock. It turned out to be the original letterbox! No one had logged in since 2007 but it was in great shape. This was a terrific surprise and now we have a replacement for it... just in case.

We then stopped for lunch in Newport in a cute coffee shop Toolman Luke had told us had vegetarian menu items. Although Espresso Yourself Cafe is not entirely a vegetarian restaurant it has an extensive vegetarian and vegan menu. RGBisme and I both opted for the 1/2 sandwich and cup of soup. He got a Santa Fe wrap and I got a vegan Reuben. They were both amazing! Along with the Potato Rivel soup we were stuffed with some of the best vegetarian food we had from a restaurant in a long time.

We drove on to check on Torchlight. The 4Rhines (now Loyalsock Skippers) had a report that it might be missing since Monday. Because we had been with Mososo Kruppe who had found it just a week prior we really thought it should be in place. We told them we would take a replacement log since the old log book was quite full. It was as secure as when Mososo Kruppe found it and we swapped out the log.

We toyed with hiking up to check on our Uncle Wiggily letterbox but opted to press on to Harrisburg and plant our new Miss Penn urban microbox. On the way to plant it we checked on one of Silent Doug's Capitol Tiles boxes because we wanted to hide a hitch hiker in it but that box seems to have gone missing. Natty Bummpo's 4th @ 3rd is still in place though.

After planting Miss Penn we drove on to Hummelstown to enjoy letterboxing in Shank Park, Gelder Park and on the Hummel Nature Trail. We sadly were again unable to leave the hitch hiker because the Hitch Hiker Hostel we went to seems to be missing. It was our second visit to it so we are pretty sure it was gone.

Some ticks made themselves known in Shank Park and we checked over our pants as we exited. The wind still was pretty strong and we were getting hungry by the end of the day. We weren't as familiar with the roads we were on as we left Hummelstown but had two restaurants in mind as we drove through the Harrisburg area. The one that we ended up stopping at was the Macaroni Grill.

After a huge supper and carrying away many left overs, we started for home. It was about 10 PM and we phoned DaBraLady as we were passing through her area. She insisted that we get together and we picked her up. We started at J. P. Edward's and ended dancing to Johnny Unit at our old haunt, The Bierhaus. I pulled out my cards and read for a bunch of kids before we left town.

We didn't make it home until after 1 AM and that is when I found a tick deeply embedded into my thigh. Much fun and jumping around to the music at The Birehaus had caused it to dig in pretty far. It was not fun getting it out but RGBisMe got it head and all. It was a very full day and a real change from sitting and answering a phone for hours.

Sunday was a sunny day but quite honestly we just recovered from the day before. Laundry, gardening and yard work was the theme after a morning of answering emails and trying to get the Miss Penn clue to work. I am still having some problems with links but decided to blog our weekend before I went back to that frustration. The day ended with a happy text that Ravenboy is back in the country. Welcome back and I am looking forward to a new week of adventures after helping WPSU meet their goal of $85,000.