Bike Rides and Letter Boxing

On Thurday the 1st of October, 8 of us packed into my suburban and headed for Hope to do a day of bike riding and letter boxing! I was able to leave Mason with my next door neighbors and I took one of her kids in exchange along with Emma, Madison, and Heidi, and my friend Farrah and her son Gideon, and her daughter Luthien. I will stop here to explain what letter boxing is.

Letter boxing is a fun little mystery hunt of sorts. There are websites with clues as to where to find these "Letter Boxes" from all over the United States. Anyone can do it. The idea is that you get a container (weather proof) and include a notebook and a carved stamp that is like your signiture, you can leave a history of the place that you hide your letter box in or not it is yours to make. Then you hide it and post clues on how to find your letter box. Other people look at the clues and then proceed to go out and find them. They have their stamps and when they find your letter box they take their stamp and put it in your notebook and then they take your stamp and stamp their notebook. That way you know who has been there and those finding can keep track of where they have been. It is soo cool to see all the different stamps that people have made. They are so creative! This letter boxing is really neat because it takes you places that you might not have visited just driving through. So all that to say that is what we were doing on Thurday. Farrah and her family had two letter boxes hidden around Hope and we were collecting them for the season (so as not to get ruined by the snow and moisture) and we also spent time looking for 4 others that were hidden by other people. The kids had a great time and loved looking for the boxes and stamping their books! We went bike riding with all of them for about a 4 mile bike roundtrip. The day was beautiful and we were able to enjoy the fall colors at the end of their prime and it was still warm enough that we could sit on the grass and have a picnic in the middle of our ride! We do not have many years where the leaves are still on the trees in such abundance this late in the year. God's beauty surounds us daily and I am thankful that I get to have a glimpse of it.

Farrah is reading the contents of the first letter box found!

Swans on Kenai Lake

Kenai Lake

At Hope looking towards Turnagain Pass

Having lunch along the bike path

The old Seward hyw. bridge....now a part of the bike path

Along the road to Hope

At the trail head to Gull Rock in Porcupine Campgound at the end of Hope road.