It Came in a Dream...

          I've had letterboxing dream many times before but this was totally different. I had an idea for a box come to me in a dream! Well, in my dream Tyrus and I went to the Columbus Zoo. For some reason you had to climb up theses stairs as if you were going to go to the top of the water slides, but it led up to the touch pool. On the way up we had to find this beam that had this magnetic cage stuck to it that was really a letterbox. The stamp inside it was a key. As we were stamping in, this over weight, shirtless white guy in swimming trunk came up the stairs and saw what we were doing. He smiled and continued up to the touch pool.
On the way down from the touch pool Tyrus and I were talking about planting a new box. I wanted to plant a box about the Prohibition in the 1920's. The box was to be named "Speak Easy" and had some interesting stuff about it. You took the lid off and you would see what looks like a door. You then slide a piece to the left in the center of this "door" to see some eyes glaring at you with a speech bubble saying "password." You would then lift up the "door" to find the logbook and stamp inside. If you took it all out of the box it looks like a bar scene back in the "20's at a speak easy place.
Very interesting box. Who knows, maybe I'll try it out!

And who would have known that wanting to go to the zoo, planning out new letterboxes, and finishing The Great Gatsby would lead to a cool box!

-Catchow

SOHT- Our First Event

After a long week I can finally sit down and tell you all about my first event!!

You can check out more photos of the event here (when I get them up)

October 13th was the Southern Ohio Haunted Trail Letterboxing event. This was our first event. On the way there we ended up taking a wrong turn and briefly got lost. We pulled over to the side of the road and ended up by this really cool old, overgrown bridge. Tyrus and I got out of the car and I took some pictures while Mother Hen figured out where we were going.

After getting back on the road and going the right way we finally made it to Frankfort Eatery in Frankfort, Ohio. Well... we did get lost again... Google Maps led us to an area just outside where we needed to be with the exact street names. We kept driving around and found the location Google Maps told us to go and Mother Hen said "What? It's in a garage? I don't think that's right." So we drove around the neighborhood and asked a hobo looking guy on a bike where the Eatery was. He told us how to get there and we made it there on time! Tyrus and I jumped out of the car (after we parked :P) and grabbed our stuff and made it over to the Eatery. Our hand were shaking with excitement and we were greeted by the Rgang when we walked in.



We signed into the book and saw that Indiana Tim was the first to sign in! I knew he was going to try to come, but didn't know he made it! After signing in and writing my name on an orange name tag, I turned around  Granny Butterfly was right there ready to do an exchange. After the exchange I finally got to meet Tim! We sat down and Tim got invested with cooties from the children running around and I was doing exchanges with everyone. Tyrus joined us after putting the food in the back and for the next hour or so we did exchanges with others and traded some LTCs. After we finally got to sit down and eat we were still doing exchanges! So many people and it was so over whelming.

A lot of people left the Eatery so we decided to go find some local boxes. There were some printed out clues for boxes around the Eatery so Tim, Tyrus, Mother Hen, and I started our way out to find the boxes.

[Tyrus, Indiana Tim, Mother Hen]

After walking around trying to understand the clues we decided that we'd rather go to Grandveiw Cemetery. We all piled into Mother Hens car and we were off to the cemetery! Tyrus and I had a hard time keeping our eyes open on the way there. We had been up very late the entire week up to the event trying to get our costumes ready for the Ohio Renaissance Festival the day after the event. We found about a dozen boxes at the cemetery.

We went to the other side of the cemetery to find the second series but we got frustrated with some of the clues and decided not find the rest, plus, we were running down on time. When we found the first box, Tyrus emptied out his bag and found he had accidentally put box from the last series in his bag! After we stamped in we back tracked our way to the last box and put it back. Afterwards, we went back and continued on finding the boxes.

[Tyrus & Indiana Tim]

After we were done letterboxing at the cemetery, we made our way back to the Eatery to get some directions to the night boxing location since, well, we didn't print any directions off on how to get there. We got to the Eatery and found everyone was gone and it was closed! Luckily, Tim had a GPS on his phone and we were able to get the location and directions there. We then followed Indiana Tim to the night boxing location. On the way there we were following Tim and all of a sudden he quickly goes around something and then Mother Hen does too. Turns out there was a snake in the road!

We got to the location and turned out we were a bit late. It was getting dark and they had boxes out on the trail for people to find in day light. Tyrus and I ran over to Indiana Tim and Mother Hen and grabbing our bags and stuff, I said, "Come on! We're going boxing!" We then hurried over to the starting point and began our search for the boxes. Soon the day time boxes became night time boxes and had to find them in the dark. We had to do it as fast as we could too because they needed to start planting the actual night boxes. After the boxes were found we sat around the fire for a bit and helped Tim set up his tent. One of the little girls there decided she needed to show me all the secret boxes around the area and dragged me around pointing them all out. After all that fun we went back to the fire and waited for a group to get back from the night hike so we could have the clues to find the boxes.

It was interesting, night boxing. The Rgang gave us each a pen with a flashlight on the end of it. How nifty. Mother Hen chose to stay around the fire while we did some real night boxin'. We were the last to do the day boxes and the last to do the night boxes. Since we were the last on the trail the two boys who were scaring people on the trail got tired and didn't scare us. We didn't know this till we got to the second trail and Tyrus kicked a cardboard think down thinking someone was going to jump out at us! The series we found were from a claymation movie of which I hate the most. I HATE claymation. The only one I like is "Shawn the Sheep." There's just something about it that gets to me... creeps me out and I just... I just can' watch it. I pushed through though and got all the stamps. Creeped me out even more since it was dark and we though two boys were going to jump out at us.

After the first series were done we were ready for the next. The only problem was that they didn't have any clues. There was a group who were going through the trail again to see if they could find the boxes they were missing. They showed us where the first box was so we could see how they looked. It was a a neatly sewn pouch with glow in the dark fabric on the front. It was really cool other than the fact the the glow in the dark stuff was wearing off. We kind of just followed the group ahead of us so we knew the general areas where the boxes were. The last two or thee were the hardest because the glow stuff was completely gone. We did find them all! There were 12 boxes and it was all creatures that glow in the dark in some sort of fashion. They were very well done stamp and probably my favorite from that day.

Night boxing was really interesting and the second trail was really hilly so we had to try not to fall down the hills. It was fun but not something we will be able to do often since a lot of places are closed at dusk. After we finished the series we went back and chatted with some people and stamped the rest of the boxes around the area. After all the stamping and goodbyes we were off. It was almost midnight when we got home and I still had stuff to do. Ended up going to bed around 2a.m. because I was working on our final pieces to our costumes.

Over all, the event was pretty awesome. It was a good experience for being our first event. Can't wait for the next event!

Well if anyone is interested below is going to be some pictures and stuff from The Ren. Fest.

The day after the event we went to the Ohio Renaissance Festival. All week we were working to get stuff done for SOHT event and the Renaissance. We got most of our stuff at the thrift store for our costumes. Our armor stuff is made out of craft foam from the craft store. After hours of working on our costumes we finally got them done and had it packed up so we could put it on when we got to the festival. The rain held off for most of the day but it got really windy. It was hard putting on our many layer and stuff with the wind blowing every thing.

We got in and started walking around and it wasn't even 5 mins before people started commenting on our costumes or coming up to us. So many people stopped us for our pictures. It was so awesome!! A few groups actually were chancing us down just to get our photo! Every time we went by this guys booth we would yell "Assassins!!" and we would have to take off running. There was also a few guys who spent their time trying to "kill" us. One came up and "slashed" our backs with his fake sword and it really hurt. We rode a camel and met a lot of people. It was really awesome.

Well, enough about that. Just a side thing and wasn't about letterboxing. well below are some pictures is you are interested!

Tyrus

Me

Assassins on a camel!!

Fighting a Templar

Check out more photos here (when I get them up)

~Catchow

Letterboxing Psyc. Paper

About two weeks ago I posted a request on the AQ boards for people to take a survey for my project for my psychology class. I know some were interested in my results. Below is the project I turned in. Word for word.
Thank you to everyone who took my survey! I only needed minimum of40 people to take it and 97 people took it!

I also got a perfect on my paper! :)

Letterboxer’s Hiking Activities

Is there a correlation between gender and hiking activities during letterboxing? This research question led me to my two hypotheses.  I hypothesize that most letterboxers are female and do not feel comfortable and/or safe hiking alone. I also hypothesize that  letterboxers hike one mile or less while letterboxing because most letterboxers live in urban areas that don't provide high-mile hiking areas, and most boxes are hidden in cemeteries. After the hypotheses were formed I used the survey method together to gather data to test my hypotheses.

           I created a seven question survey on surveymonkey.com, which I posted on a popular letterboxing website, atlasquest.com. My target population was those who participate in letterboxing. In one of the discussion boards I stated I was doing a research project for my psychology class about letterboxing. I did this on a Friday night and within a two day span I received over 90 completed surveys. The first three questions of the survey were for my first hypothesis:  I hypothesize that most letterboxers are female and do not feel comfortable and/or safe hiking alone.

1. Are you male for female?

            2. Do you hike alone while letterboxing? (if yes, skip question #3)

3. Do you hike with others because you don’t feel comfortable and/ or safe hiking alone?

           My last four questions were for my second hypothesis: I  hypothesize that letterboxers hike one mile or less while letterboxing because most letterboxers live in urban areas that don't provide high-mile hiking areas, and most boxes are hidden in cemeteries.

4. How many miles to you typically hike while letterboxing?

            5. Do you live in an urban area?

            6. Are high mile (1+ miles) hiking areas available where you letterbox?

7. Are most of the letterboxes you find hidden in cemeteries?

           There were 97 letterboxers who participated in my survey. For my first hypothesis, I found that 81.4% were female and 18.6% were male. Only 37.1% of those letterboxers hiked alone. The other 62.9% did not hike alone. For question three, 45.6% choose to hike with others because they did not feel comfortable and/or safe while hiking alone. The results from this question are not truly accurate because some letterboxers who answered “yes” to question two did not skip question three even though the instructions said to. For my second hypothesis, I learned that 23.7% of letterboxers hike one mile or less, 46.4% hike one to two miles, 24.7% hike two to three miles, 1.0% hike four to five miles, and 4.1% hike five plus miles. Next, 53.6% of letterboxers live in urban areas and the other 46.4% do not. In the areas they letterbox, 71.1% have high mile hiking areas provided and the other 22.9% are not provided with high mile hiking areas. Lastly, only 7.2% of letterboxers find boxes in cemeteries. The other 92.8% find boxes elsewhere.

           After analyzing my data, I have concluded that my first hypothesis is right but my second hypothesis is wrong. In my first hypothesis I was correct that most letterboxers are female and do not hike alone. The results make the hypothesis appear incorrect, but the data collection was flawed because people did not follow the directions stated in question two. If the subject answered “yes” to question two, then they should have skipped question three, but 7% of the participants did not skip the question. In my second hypothesis I was correct about most letterboxers living in urban areas, however, I was wrong about letterboxers in urban areas not being provided with high-mile hiking areas and most boxes being hidden in cemeteries.

           As a result of my two hypotheses I have concluded that there is a correlation between gender and hiking habits during letterboxing. Most letterboxers are female and do not feel comfortable and/or safe hiking alone, and even though most letterboxers live in urban areas, almost half hike one to two miles when they letterbox.

 

 

 

~Catchow

A Stamp for Indiana

A while ago I became great friends with a fellow letterboxer, Indiana Tim. More times then often, you will see us hanging out in the AQ chat room chatting. Well one day we were chatting about carving stamps and such when Tim told me that he tried carving a stamp of his little girl.
"Looks like a creepy skull!" he said. "Maybe I'll send it out and get it professionally done."
After a couple minuets of thinking I offered to carve the stamp for him.
Later I received a caricature drawing of a small child that I then carved. It didn't take too long, but I did end up reprinting the photo quiet a few times looking for the right size. I also added her name into the stamp. It was a pretty good carve and the fist time I had ever carved a caricature.
As a surprise I hand sewn (because I don't like sewing machines) a small horse draw-string bag for her to carry the stamp in. The stamp was carved for Tim but it was being given to his little girl and he didn't even know I had made the bag.
A few weeks later I mailed the package out to Indiana Tim. Within a few days he hand the package. He loved the stamp and the bag I made. I also managed to make him crack up when he read the card I wrote. I love making people laugh.
When he gave the stamp to his little girl she went to her mom and said, "Look mama! It's me!" She then wanted to see all of Tims stamps and the got all inked up from stamping their stamps.

I love making people happy and I love carving stamps for other people. Nothing makes me happier than to hear that I made someones day.

~Catchow