Sunday, October 6, 2013

ROAD TRIP! On the road with Fiddleheads and letterboxing in Shirley Center, Massachusetts

I am very derelict in my report of my fantastical adventure down in Boston.  I went down and stayed with Fiddleheads at the event.  Quite the drive.  Oh, she lived to regret it. 

Back at the end of August (how time flies!) Fiddleheads and I drove down to We Live and Breathe XV together, staying overnight in Albany.  It is a well-studied fact that on road trips, when confined in a vehicle for a long distance, one passenger will inevitably make the others miserable.  The key here is to be that person driving the rest nuts.  You can assure yourself that you will have a lovely drive so long as you can be as obnoxious as possible and drive the others batty.  Be happy as a clam by making the others miserable.

Reenactment of road trip.
As such, I made sure to juice up on caffeine before leaving Toronto and met Fiddleheads in Aldershot, Ontario, while practically vibrating.  There’s a story to go here about Fiddleheads, a renowned Ontario letterboxer who dominates the difficult clues, who manages to lose her own vehicle in a three-isle parking lot.  But I won’t discuss that here.  Too embarrassing for her.

Anyways, we over-nighted in Albany but didn’t get any letterboxing done. We were tired and it was hot. Pass.

However, the next day, we got to within spitting distance of Groton and decided to stop into Shirley Center to try our hand at a really old letterbox – 1999 was the original plant year. Town Pound in Shirley Center was a fantastic find and a great way to start off the letterboxing trip on the right foot.

It started with us not knowing what the heck the town pound was or where to find it.  Fiddleheads decided to remedy this by asking a local.  Me, I hid in the car.  Why?  Back home, I'd harass anyone I ran into for information if I thought it would help me find a box. But, I'm a Canadian, and sometimes with a USAer you assume they have a gun.  Don't spook the locals and all that.   Fiddleheads would have been right though: this was not a gun-toting maniac, but a sweet little old granny.

In fact, this sweet granny had the keys to the old church and let us in for some really cool exploring.  On the way, we saw two other letterboxers find this box before us.  Oh, well ;)  

1 comment:

  1. *Snort*. You think you drove me even a little nuts? Hardly. You forget I did 10 000km in a minivan with three kids only two months earlier. You'll have to work a whole lot harder than "coffee" to send me around the bend.

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