Today's journey began early this morning with a little side trip into Africa. Threespoiledboxers were missionaries in Africa until one of the family contracted malaria and they had to come home. They have put together a series of boxes that will make you feel as if you know Africa as well as they do by the time you are through.I have really enjoyed the extra information in their clues. Some of the logbooks even have pictures of the sights of Africa.
Then we headed up the mountain into Asheville. We were able to visit Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary in the summer. Last time we were there, the foliage was just beginning to come out. Wow! What a difference! We found Anna's Rose and got to see a blue heron while we stamped in.
Next we went to Lake Louise to get our 250th find!! Mama Fox has planted a box called “Good Friends”. She had seemed a little bit anxious for me to find it and now I know why!! It was a beautiful image of Baby Fox and Little Bird made from a picture she had taken last time we were there. Little Bird was amazed and very proud!!! Thanks Mama Fox, we are honored to be called your friends.
Now we could hit the road for some real boxing. We met The Little Foxes in Burnsville, NC, home of the Appalachian quilt squares. There are quilt squares all over town and country here based on the traditional patterns. At the Southern Highlands gathering in June, boxes were planted in honor of them and I only found half of them. So I was looking forward to finishing up my collection.
But first we visited the tea shop because I wanted the kids to have tea with me in the coolest tea room ever! The Orchid tearoom is a self serve tea lounge in the upstairs of a paper shop. The décor and the teas are exotic. They loved it and at the end of the day, this was one of their favorite stops.
From there, we headed over to an amzing used book store. All of the kids were busy devouring books, while Mama Fox and I tried to restrain oursleves from buying them all!
Mama Fox and I found a few more drive-by quilt square boxes. I loved standing at the box and seeing a barn with the same square on it just across the road!
The high point of our day, however, was 4338'. We made it to the top of Phillip's Knob without a jeep. We did take our cars up a good way, but we also hiked about 2 miles. Those amazing kids were right there with me all the way! (most of them were, anyways) The walk was beautiful. We saw a deer and lots of deer tracks. In fact, by the time the day was over we had seen 6 deer!! We also saw lots of unique Appalachian wildflowers. Turk's Cap lillies, Black Cohosh, turtle head, indian pipes, bee balm, spotted jewelweed, and pale jewelweed to name a few. The younger girls also found tons of large pieces of mica. I guess being that close to the ground pays off sometimes. In all of that wonderful nature, the kids managed to see an old wrecked car down the hillside that just fascinated them. It was just near the top of the mountain on a steep hill. I can't imagine wrecking there. It was a good thing the trees stopped them!
Our next stop was supposed to be a quicky. We headed over to Yummy Mud Puddle art studio to replace that box, only to be greeted by the duckmaster, himself. John promptly took us on a tour of his studio. He showed us some works in progress and lots of finished art. He uses lots fo salcvaged material -that's trash to most of us. His art was amazing. His organization system for all of that trash was even more amazing! We left inspired!
Lastly we had some night boxing adventures with boxes that were not meant to be found at night! We drove a Mountain Scorpia couple of miles out into a place where everybody knows everybody. And they definitely know when someone new is aorund! We found the box at the Bee Log School's baseball field while the kids played on the playground in the dark. We managed to only attract a few strange looks out of lighted front doors and rocking chairs on porches. Then we spent some time trying to decipher another Mountian Scorpia clue: ) When we finally 'got' it, it was about 10pm. We had to get the box, it was the last one and here we were ALL the way out in who knows where!! The clue stated that we had to walk in a gate where we were welcome, and although Harold and Mavis the dog would bark at us, they were friendly. We really trusted Mountain Scorpia on this one.
We crossed an old mountain bridge and headed very quietly up to the barn that displayed the quilt square....at least that's what we thought it was in the dark. So far, so good. The gate had been open and the dogs had not even barked. Then just as we approached the bar to figure out where vampires never go, an automatic motion sensor light came on!! That immediatley set the dogs to barking, but it also lit up the box. There it was...our final box. We grabbed it and ran towards our cars. But, of course, we had not escaped the notice of the barn owner. When he got to us, we told him Lucy had sent us. We were crossing our fingers that he knew who Lucy was. Luckily for us, he did and he was happy for us to get the box. Whew!
We returned home from our mini vaction at midnight. We had seen many interesting places, met a few interesting people and made memories we will not forget soon. That's what letterboxing is about: )
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