BCHP

 From the intersection of the Appalachian Trail and Rt. 183, find this memorial. 

From the memorial find the intersection which is home to the next two photos.

 From this intersection, head towards the HP about 50 steps to a small clearing which is home to about half a dozen three trunk trees on the left.  On the right side of the trail, there is a tree with two yellow discs.  About 28 steps at 100 degrees you will see a five trunk tree with a foot wide rock at its base.  Look behind the rock.

If you see the sign below, you have gone too far for the box but it is easy to catch it on the way back.  You HAVE to go on.

 

The high point is about another 150 steps, do it! Come on, you know you want to! Take those extra steps to claim that you were at the High Point of Berks County.

Bred in Berks: Taylor Swift

It would be hard to imagine anyone who enjoys modern music who does not recognize the name Taylor Swift. Berks County is very proud of the fact that Taylor spent the first 14 years of her life in Wyomissing. Starting out as a very young singer/song writer in the country music field, Taylor has now transitioned to pop music but it seems that whatever she chooses to do, she works hard and has been very successful.

To find this box, look for a park close to the town she was born in. I tried to find a spot in Wyomissing but nothing felt right so I headed a little west for this box. This park borders on the south end of the Wilson High School soccer and cross country practice fields. When you arrive there, cross the bridge over the gnisoocaC keerC and turn left. Follow the trail passing the first three landmarks in the picture. After you pass the third picture, turn right and cut across the short expanse of grass to the upper path. As you reach the end of the wild area, turn left to see the tree in the fourth picture. About four feet to the right of that tree you will see a boulder. Look for the little nook in the back of the boulder.

Recommended color: purple

Florida's Timucua

From the monument above, head to the historic marker below.

When you get to the marker, look to the east and see two trailheads.  Take the one below.

    Yes, take this one.

Walk a bit till you see this bench and nature sign.

Now walk a little further till you see this nature sign on the left.

With your back to this sign, look across the trail for two palm trees, one about 15 feet into the woods and the other about 5 feet further.  Check out the back of tree 2.

When you finish, please remember to listen for the snap of each corner of the box lid.  I am convinced that is what helped this box survive four major hurricanes.

Conquer the Wall

  

Ooops, this is the clue to another nearby letterbox!

 

Do not turn left until you are past the bolt fund.

 

 

 

Enjoy the view while stamping in.

The Empty Basket Series - My Alma Mater

My Alma Mater has been added as a personal traveler in my Empty Basket series.  To get it, one just has to tell me that I went to the college with the following logo:

There's No Place Like Home - The Reading Railroad

Most people who have played Monopoly may not give much thought to the railroad properties but they, just like the street names are based on real railroads.  Next time you hop onto the space occupied by the Reading Railroad, you will know that it was based on the railroad which

ran through Reading, PA.  For a time in the 19^th century, the Reading Railroad was the largest corporation in the world, doing business hauling coal through Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey.  When the coal business declined, so did the business for the Reading Railroad.  Today, most conversations around the Reading Railroad are concerned with the correct pronunciation of it.  Is it Reeding or is it Redding?  For those who don’t know, it is Redding.

When the Berks County Conservancy gave me permission to place letterboxes on its property, it sent me a packet of information.  Most of the places I had already heard of, Angelica Park, Neversink Mountain, Earle Poole Sanctuary, but one of the brochures was new to me – the Gravity Trail which follows the old tracks of the Mt. Penn Gravity Railroad.  I spent an afternoon exploring the three parks which are located side by side on the trail and began my walk after parking in the middle one.  I passed two old pavilions and tried to imagine the picnics that were held there long ago.  After crossing a lovely arched stone bridge, I headed left and began my uphill walk.  Soon, I forgot that I was actually in the city limits as pretty little waterfalls and several rock formations surrounded me.  I crossed a second little stone bridge and after walking a very short distance, I saw an unmarked trail to the right which lead by a rotting tree stump about ten feet tall.  I followed the trail about ten more feet and found a tree with an interesting base filled with nooks and crannies on the left side of the trail.  The most interesting nook was located on the side facing the road above me. 

 My walk was only about a half mile one way but it provided me with a little piece of history, a big piece of beauty and the pride of knowing a new area in the town I live in.

There's No Place Like Home - the Reading Pagoda

I love to travel in the US and we recently came home from a wonderful vacation in the Southwest.  We drove from Nevada back to Pennsylvania and thoroughly enjoyed an area of the country which was so different from our own lush green state.  There was beauty everywhere we looked but as we got closer and closer to home, I had to admit how much I had missed the state we live in and this inspired a new series of boxes I hope to create showing some of the highlights of our state.

The Reading Pagoda

Tq53  529

94qht3 54q8o  23w5

3hu96  f832 59   h945y u7w5  g3r943

51491-36591

w2 e92h3e  5433

4995  3he

Flood Plan 2

We live near the Schuylkill River and although it doesn't happen often, it does flood occasionally.  A few years ago it flooded badly and I decided that I needed an escape plan in case it happened again so I planted Flood Plan 1.  Unfortunately, I chose a bad spot for this box and it floated away - I guess it was good to find this out before I really needed it.  Then a few weeks ago, I found what looked like a much better location.  See what you think!

 

 

 

35 steps down the fishermen's trail to these trees on the right of the trail.

Photo Clues to Klapperthal Junction

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer Hiking Buddy - missing and presumed hijacked by a Geocacher

Originally placed in 2006.
Located in Exeter Township on the Exeter Scenic River Trail.

5/5/13- I went to do maintenance on this box and it was missing. Out of curiosity, I checked Geocaching.com and found that in March, a new cache had been placed within a few feet of my box and that several geocachers mentioned that they found the box instead of the cache.  Funny that a few weeks after a cache was placed, my box, which had been in place since 2006, went missing.  Coincidence???  I think not!

I have a little hiking buddy
He goes in and out with me

And what can be the use of him
Is more than I can see

He really, really likes me
From my head down to my toes

And he really enjoys getting
In my ears and in my nose

If you would like to share him
There's something you should know

After just a little bit of rain
The Schuylkill can overflow

Walking along this trail in
Search of my little buddy

Can lead you along a walkway
That can often be quite muddy

From the Exeter River parking lot
Keep the river on your left

And head past the two mile marker
And the benches right and left

Halfway between them looms
The boulders large and great

And in a crevice along the left
My buddy lies in wait

So don't forget your sneakers
And to apply your spray

Because if you forget either
You will rue it the next day

I checked on this box 4/22/10 and it is still safely nestled in its hidey hole, never found. Thanks to Otis Friends for supplying me with the clues which I lost when my old computer died. I did tweak the clues a bit so if you had saved these from a few years ago, please reprint them.
Hint: If you are clever enough to figure out the alternate entrance to this trail, you can cut the walk down from about four miles to one.

Celebration!

There are all kinds of friends in this world. There are the people I work with who spend more time with me than even my family does. They know more about me than most people do, sometimes even more than my family does. And there are the friends that I socialize with. They usually know very little about me because our bond is often very limited to one small part of our lives. Then there are the friends who share a passion and that passion usually makes for a very strong friendship. Letterboxing is one of my two passions, and most people know that my grandchildren are the other.

I will never forget the first time that I met True Indigo of the Crayola Posse at a Rubbermaid Road Rally. I immediately felt a kindred spirit in spite of the fact that our lives are so different. Through the years, along with RGBisMe, we have enjoyed so many experiences and this past weekend, I was delighted to be asked to join them for a letterboxing milestone. We met early on a rainy Sunday morning to begin our quest to find their 1000th letterbox. We quickly found two of my drivebys and then headed for Nolde Forest to find the final four that they needed. Slowly, we began our countdown, finding one, then the second and then moved on to their third. But I had a surprise planned for them because I wanted their 1000th find to be one of my boxes. As they were searching for number 999, I quickly hid number 1000, and when they came to the table to stamp in, I gave them the simple clues to attain their goal. They quickly found a Celebration!

After the Celebration! we continued on our search for additional boxes, all the time looking for a suitable permanent hiding spot for Celebration! We had cause for another mini Celebration! after finding a mystery box that has eluded me several times. When we finished with that Celebration! we moved on a little and we found a hiding spot for Celebration! We headed north on the Laurel Path. About 120 steps past the intersection with Cabin Hollow Road, we saw a three trunk chestnut oak about twenty feet off the trail on the right. Celebration! nestled very nicely in the joint formed by the three trunks. RGBisMe collected some rocks to help anchor it in and while doing so, also found an interesting camo pole which was part of a Villanova bird study. We felt pretty good about the hiding spot as we walked further down the trail, soon hitting the connector trail with the Middle Road and the next part of our quest. Although our Celebration! is now behind us, I would like to invite each and every one of you to join me in our Celebration! of the Crayola Posse’s 1000th find.

Length of walk: 2 miles roundtrip

Elevation: varies depending on your route, highest elevation about 100 feet

Date Planted: 11/1/09
Color needed for stamp: Bright colors