2nd Letterboxing Road Trip - First mini-meet (Day One)

Zairabear had told me about 6 weeks ago that she had a field trip to Sacramento. I volunteered to Chaperone and we planned to spend the weekend in Sac hunting letterboxes. Well, life went on (as it always does) and with me being between jobs and in the process of moving (sort of), I decided to trim the trip back to just one overnight stay.

While researching Sac area clues I came across Black Cavalier's listing for his Fanny Ann's box which is officially retired as two of the clues have gone missing. He stated in the listing, however, that if he could meet people there he'd bring the box and they could complete it. A brilliant idea was born! I contacted Nils and he agreed to try to meet us there Friday night. Posted to the LbNCA list and a mini-meet was in the works!

Thursday night I went down to Gilroy and spent the night so I could be up bright and early at 5am (an hour I'm more used to climbing IN bed rather than OUT of bed). Awoke excited and we headed to the school where Z piled on the bus with the rest of the kids and I (and 2 other parents) followed behind. The field trip was full of non-lb drama which I'll relate elsewhere (time permitting), but I did manage to tuck one box away for future visitors :D

The fireld trip ended at the Golden State History Museum around 3pm and Z and I went back in to explore it a little more. Then we headed down to Old Sacramento to find boxes before the dinner meeting. We picked up our first one, NancyAnne & Doug's "Old Sac" and while stamping in I asked Z if she wanted to leisurely look for boxes (as we usually do) or go for as many as possible. She chose the latter. This is a mistake that will not be repeated again. I get too easily frustrated with little things when I'm in a rush, so we're gonna stick to our normal slower pace from now on.

Our next stop was one of Da Kool Kat's "Old Sac Landmark Series", but the store housing the box was closed for a family funeral. We then went after another in the series, but the store was PACKED with kids and I empathised with the busy retail employees so we moved on. We did go back and get this one later, though!

We went looking for Black Cavalier's "Eureka Letterbox" but there was a guy leaning against the rail looking right at the box's hiding spot. So we moved on to ArtTrekker's "Four In Old Sac: Stagecoach", but it turns out it's in the same "garden" and the guy was still there. Was he stalking us?

We checked for the third in the "Old Sac" series, but had no luck finding the right street, then checked for Da Kool Kat's "U-Neak Pig", but totally had the wrong store. Back to the "garden" and we managed to grab "Stagecoach" just before our stalker appeared again. We'd have to rehide this one later.

Next up was Sierra Sally's "Gold Rush Romp Series - Wells Fargo Stage and I Hit The Motherlode!" Alas, there was a vendor handing out fliers in front of the WF Stage. But we did manage to grab the Motherlode. By the time we stamped in there were folks waiting for their bus to load in that very spot, so we hung onto that box as well. It also needd a new logbook, so we added that as well.

Heading back to the "garden" we had just enough time to rehide ArtTrekker's box before our stalker arrived and we headed for dinner. We got to Fanny Ann's and quickly found the first clue, which led us to the 2nd, which led us to ... a blank space where the clue should have been. Ack! We headed back downstairs to double check and ran into none other than the Black Cavalier himself and his adorable little daughter (whose name I've forgotten because I'm horrible with names. She sure was cute though!).

We grabbed a table by the door and were soon joined by Da Kool Kats and Old Blue. Much yabbering took place and we were all having a great time when another young couple approached our table: Dem XX Men!! They had sent me an email saying they were coming, but I was already on the road, so this was a huge surprise! More merriment ensued as logbooks were passed around for eXchanges, tales were told, hints were given, etc. It was a blast!

As Z and I finally headed for our motel room we actually passed DXM on the street looking for one of the Old Sac boxes! What a cool feeling! Back at the motel we crashed hard, so there was no time to finish the boxes we'd intended on prepping for the next day. Getting up early and having so much fun has a way of doing that :D

Tags: Sacramento, field trip, mini-meet, eXchange, speed boxing