Treasure Hunting for Dummies

Stacey, my friend from Ohio, has blessed us with a visit this week and brought some serious Ohio culture with her. First, she made cake balls, which I have morally opposed for so long, and forced me to eat and like them. Then she introduced us to letterboxing.

What is letterboxing? According to Wikipedia "Letterboxing is an outdoor hobby that combines elements of orienteering, art, and puzzle solving. Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly-accessible places (like parks) and distribute clues to finding the box in printed catalogs, on one of several web sites, or by word of mouth. Individual letterboxes usually contain a notebook and a rubber stamp. Finders make an imprint of the letterbox's stamp, either on their personal notebook or on a postcard, and leave an impression of their personal stamp on the letterbox's "visitors' book" or "logbook" — as proof of having found the box and letting subsequent letterboxers see who have visited. Many letterboxers keep careful track of their "find count"".

Okay, now that the boring definitions are out of the way let me show you what we found. Stacey looked up several letterboxes around the Antelope Valley on AtlasQuest.com and off we went. By the way, the boys were majorly into treasure hunting before Stacey showed us any of this so we have some really excited people in our house right now!

The first letterbox was in Llano, CA. We followed clues down some crazy dirt roads and ended up at the ruins of the Llano del Rio Colony built in 1900 by the unified Socialist Party, which included Aldous Huxley.


The clues led us around the tower, down this road-thing and through and old house. Then we had to use a compass heading to find a rock pile, go a few paces to a speckled rock and then find our treasure! Here is Stacey stamping the log book in the letterbox and stamping the letterbox stamp in her book.

Letterbox #2 and 3 were at Devil's Punchbowl. Gorgeous this time of year!!!

We couldn't find the first box but found the second. This is it's stamp, an owl named Squints.

Here is the real Squints. As an owlet he fell from the nest and was rescued. He now has this sweet pad at the visitor center. He looks like he loves it.

So that was our first trip out. The next day we brought Erik with us and his excitement far outstripped the childrens'.

Letterbox #1 ended up being on the north side of the "Welcome to Mojave" sign.

It was a Spaceship One stamp called the Ten Million Dollar Baby and carried the dedication "Dedicated to the ingenuity of private industry and capitalism." All the stamps below Spaceship One are from other people who have visited this site.

The next box we were headed for was supposed to be a turtle but as we got nearer and Erik read the clues he quickly made a U-turn and informed us that the "unusual sign" the prize promised to be hiding beneath was a large billboard of a less than clothed woman. I've never driven that way or seen said sign but I was glad to take his word for it and head off to Letterbox #3 and 4 in Tehachapi.

These two were really fun! They were at historical markers at the Tehachapi railroad loop, which is apparently world famous, read the signs!

A train derailed on the loop on February 21, 2010 so we got to watch the cleanup and see the fire fighters working to remove the rest of the damage.

So here is Stacey's log book for our letterboxing adventures (except for the pirate, that was another adventure of hers). All the stamps are hand carved, I love the train loop stamp!

One last picture of the loop! So we are addicted now and will be making our own stamps and log books for the kids. Hopefully, we'll help each of the kids make and plant their own boxes around the Antelope Valley. Thanks Stacey for including us in the fun!!!