Back to the Rock

Saturday, May 23, 2009 Road Junkies 0 Comments

The Saturday of Memorial Day weekend was declared the date for the sixth annual Southeast Letterboxing Gathering at Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta. We joined more than 100 other letterboxers for a full day of meeting and greeting and letterboxing.

A group of us decided to search for the boxes on the walk-up trail up the mountain. We had no difficulty recognizing the "gum pole" referenced in the clues for several boxes. Although the socializing that goes with searching as a group was fun, stamping in definitely took a bit longer.
We were fascinated with all the plant life that grows on the mountain, which is just a big mound of granite. This tree in particular seemed amazingly resilient.
Our friend Cathy was determined to find the Gnarly Head letterbox this time around, having spent more than an hour hunting it in April. Her efforts were rewarded when she found the box.
And, of course, finding Gnarly Head called for a celebration... with some Gnarly Head!
We all huffed and puffed a bit before making it to the top of the mountain, where we were rewarded with some awesome letterboxes planted there and a terrific view of downtown Atlanta.
The hands-down winner of the prize for most unusual sight we saw while letterboxing at the park was the "passy" tree. Who knew these grew in Georgia?

Asheville...City of Our Dreams?

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 Road Junkies 0 Comments

Little did we know when we planted our Sister's Sixty letterbox in Asheville's Carrier Park to honor Jeanne's 60th birthday what a popular place we had selected. The box was planted at the beginning of December, 2008, and we had heard from people who had found it recently that the logbook was almost full. Just the news we needed to spur a trip to Asheville! By the time we arrived, there were no blank pages remaining, the letterbox having been visited by more than 30 letterboxers.
Riverside Cemetery is one of our favorite places to go letterboxing in Asheville. It can't rival Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery in beauty but can certainly hold its own in terms of interesting "residents" from Thomas Wolfe to O. Henry to a slew of Confederate generals.
Built in 1924, Old Craggy Prison was the subject of a class action lawsuit in 1986 due to overcrowded, unsanitary prison conditions. The North Carolina Department of Corrections entered into a settlement agreement which included the construction of a replacement facility. On an eerie visit to the old prison to locate a letterbox planted there, we were briefly joined by a mysterious motorcycle rider who rode into the parking lot (wearing a helmet with facecover) and zoomed away as we were about to get really spooked.
When we were sesarching for a letterbox at Carl Sandburg's home in Flat Rock, NC, we were puzzled by the clue's reference to "the tree that needs a bra." Once we saw the tree, all was clarified, but the box wasn't there! One letterbox that we ran out of time to find in January was in the tunnel through Beaucatcher Mountain. We weren't sure which side it was on, but the clue indicated it could be found about halfway through and was just a stamp hanging from a string. We got lucky and guessed right on the first try!
In our efforts to figure out whether Asheville is the hometown of our dreams, we spent some time driving by houses on the market. Some were truly above the clouds, and we couldn't help wondering how long it took for the residents to get to the grocery store "down below."

A Flood of Mishap

Thursday, May 07, 2009 Road Junkies 0 Comments

Our planned May trip to England was postponed by a sad event, the death of Dianne's stepfather in Laurel, Mississippi. Although we were very sad to lose him, he had not been well for a very long time and had no prospects of getting better.

When our return to Atlanta included yet another incident of heavy rainfall in the Montgomery, Alabama area, we were not at all surprised. It's uncanny how many times we've been innundated with precipitation in that city. Today's flash flood actually made the news with an estimated 12 inches of rain falling in the city in one hour. The Alabama legislature was ordered to evacuate the state capital building after the basement filled with four feet of water and a wall collapsed.
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