Desparately Seeking Sun

Wow, Letterboxing is a ton of fun, and its nice to meet other people who think it's fun too. On Saturday, February 18th, in Highland Forest in Fabius, NY, was the Desparately Seeking Sun letterbox gathering, hosted by Lock Wench. What a great job she did! There was Letterboxing Bingo, great raffle prizes, letterboxes indoors and out, and of course a pot luck that was huge. Joystar, Wyvern, and LOSTGIRL were all there (you know...the relations) and a lot of other familar faces that Laura and I met at the Western NY gathering last summer.

We had a great time outdoors finding boxes. It was about 10 degrees above zero, so our hikes were short, sometimes only long enough for someone to jump out of the car, go get the box, and jump back into the car for everyone to stamp into. We strategically found boxes that would help us on the Bingo game, and it paid off. Joystar won the Bingo game, and we shared the gas gift cards with Wyvern and LOSTGIRL since we all got the four rows of letterboxes together. We also got Lock&Lock containers for getting two rows done.

After the gathering we headed to Syracuse to the hotel. You know, after a day of finding small boxes in the woods, you would think we could find our hotel. But good old mapquest gave us directions down a dead end street. Oh yeah, there is the hotel, but its on the otherside of I-90! We settled in though and had fun chatting and watchng Olympics. It was a great day of letterboxing, and I feel very inspired now to carve more stamps, and get more boxes hidden.

Heaven is in PA!

Well, winter was a bust in Rochester this year. Too warm, and not enough ice. I was itching to go ice fishing all winter, but the weather wasn't cooperating. Then Dom invited me down to Big Al's cottage on Lake Underwood in northeastern Pennsylvania. Dom told me that this private lake never failed to produce, in fact he gave me the "G" that we would catch fish. Well I couldn't pass up that chance!
First, I should thank Big Al for hosting us, and the Silver Bear for feeding us. The accomodations were rustic, but it couldn't have been better: woodstove in the middle of the first floor, comfy sofa to sleep on, extra helpings of food. Deer mounts on the wall, and pictures of the trophy fish from the lake decorated the walls. It is exactly the kind of place I can see owning some day. Part summer cottage, part hunting camp. It was perfect. I was sore from laughing at Big Al's constant banter, and diligence in keeping us happy and warm.



The oncoming nor-easter made for a great day of fishing. The TV called for an blizzard along the seaboard, but we were far enough north and west of the storm, that we only got maybe an inch. But the fish were ready for us. I have never ice fished a better variety of fish. We caught pumkinseeds, perch, bass, crappie and pickerel. Big Al's sons came with some friends for saturday afternoon, and they pulled in a 26" pickerel, the biggest of the weekend. The state record I am told is 30" in PA! I mostly jigged while Dom and the Silver Bear manned the tip-ups. I couldn't catch a small crappie if I wanted to, they were all keepers. When we finished filleting fish on Sunday, we had 9 lbs of fish. This was an unforgetable weekend, and I thank Big Al, the Silver Bear, and Domzer for making it a great time!