Hidden Treasure

Some friends at work were talking about Letter Boxing. I had never heard of this, but it sounded like so much fun and I knew it would be ideal for Adam and a fun summer activity for our family. If you are like me, and have evidently been living under a rock somewhere and have not heard about this, you can see all the details of how it all works here.

* Taken from the letter boxing website*

Here's the basic idea: Someone hides a waterproof box somewhere (in a beautiful, interesting, or remote location) containing at least a logbook and a carved rubber stamp, and perhaps other goodies. The hider then usually writes directions to the box (called "clues" or "the map"), which can be straightforward, cryptic, or any degree in between. Once the clues are written, hunters in possession of the clues attempt to find the box. In addition to the clue and any maps or tools needed to solve it, the hunter should carry at least a pencil, his personal rubber stamp, an inkpad, and his personal logbook. When the hunter successfully deciphers the clue and finds the box, he stamps the logbook in the box with his personal stamp, and stamps his personal logbook with the box's stamp. The box's logbook keeps a record of all its visitors, and the hunters keep a record of all the boxes they have found, in their personal logbooks.

All we needed to get started was a little notebook (unruled - no lines), a personalized stamp & a pen or pencil. Side note - learn from my mistake and read the FAQ's before you get started. I only learned after the fact, that you are supposed to use a hand made stamp that you carve with a rubber eraser. We probably defiled the notebooks with our cheap, dollar store, sports stamps...OOPPS! :) Next, you go to the website and click on Clues. Select your state and city, chose the clues that you want and print them out.

Here is Adam at our first location. The clue was a little tricky, but luckily it was right down the street from our house and we knew right where to go. Adam was so excited...it was like a treasure hunt.
Mark & Adam stamping their books with the awesome hand carved stamp that was left in the hiding place...and then stamping the log book with our junky stamp. I felt kind of bad.
Here are the boys at the second location. It was really neat because all the clues we chose were historical places in town. It was like a fun little history lesson at each stop.

We had to stop and rest...and get a quick picture of me with the boys. Colton was just along for the ride and probably wondering why we kept getting in and out of the car so many times.

Another landmark and history lesson. This location had my favorite stamp.

We had such a good time and we hope to keep it up for a fun family tradition. we are even thinking about trying it out when we visit different cities since there are alot of locations listed.