What a First Letterbox Looks Like

Today Catharine and I reached a new level in our relationship. Letterboxing! Seriously, this is a great activity--one which I originally doubted and am now converted to. It's fun, easy, and for the most part air-conditioned, which on a day as hot as today was (high 90s) has to count for something. I want to give a big shout-out to Skoticus and Tom Hansen for inspiring the day's activities thanks to their positive reviews of letterboxing. For those of you not familiar, here's the shakedown on what you do.

Step 1: Find a letterbox in your area so as to save gasoline. There was one right in Wrightstown! Connor helps. Here's the dialogue of the process:

Step 2: Solve the clue to what you're looking for. Here's what we were given:

Eight Sided School House

[14][17][22][12]//[28][16][13]//[13][17][15][16][28]//

[27][17][12][13][12]//[27][11][16][23][23][20]//

[16][23][29][27][13]//[17][22]//

[31][26][17][15][16][28][27][23][31][22]//[24][9].//

[14][26][23][21]//[28][16][13]//[12][23][23][26]//

[14][17][22][12]//[28][16][13]//

[10][26][17][12][15][13].//

[28][16][13]//[10][23][32]//[17][27]//

[9][11][26][23][27][27]//[28][16][13]//

[10][26][17][12][15][13]//[29][22][12][13][26]//

[28][16][13]//[26][17][15][16][28]//[27][17][12][13].

Not getting it? Here's the solution we came up with after some clever deduction:

Find the eight

sided school

house in

Wrightstown PA.


From the door


find the


bridge.


The box is


across the


bridge under


the right side.




We really wanted it to be a poem with rhyme and meter (a limmerick perhaps?) but we settled for vague directions!


Step 3: Make your stamp. Being resourceful, Cat and I decided to carve ours out of a rubber eraser. Catharine designing, me approving:



We decided on a C and A design, using ASL.

Catharine applies ink for the stamp's maiden voyage:

Even without the photographic proof, I can tell you it was a successful print.

Step 4: Find your letterbox. On the way over to the eight-sided schoolhouse (which, by the way, was pretty cool) I began to get very nervous that the box would not be where the internet told us it would. I doubted--visions of maurading deer stealing boxes, hobos making off with rubber stamps to sell on the rubber stamp blackmarket floated through my mind. Catharine did her best to assuage me.


Oh letterboxing! You came through in the clutch! The box was just where it was supposed to be.

Inside we found the tiny log of stamps as well as their own rubber stamp for our book.

Step 5: Use your homeade stamp to leave a record in the log of your visit. Be sure to write your names.

Step 6: Use the box's stamp in your book. This is getting kind of hard to describe--not doing the greatest job here--but let's just say they had a cool stamp that looked like an eight-sided schoolhouse, I inked it up, and stamped it on some paper we brought with us.

Three cheers for letterboxing! Seriously, if you haven't tried this it's a good one. It would make for a great family home evening activity, date, Eagle Scout project, Master's thesis, weekend getaway. Go to it.