Our First Adventure

Our first Letterboxing adventure was finding the park! We decided to go today (Sunday) because the first trail is closer to my parents’ house than to ours. We made a wrong “non-turn” and turned around after talking to a park ranger at a different park (different park system, even!) and found our way into Sunbury, Ohio. We saw the sign for the park, which isn’t on the road the park is on. We drove around Sunbury for a bit before finally finding Vernon St and followed it back to where we had turned around to get to the sign. Ah, well.

The first trail is the Big Walnut Community Trail. Before we got onto the trail, we saw our first bunny of the evening. A converted portion of an old railway line (we got to walk across the railroad bridge), the walk in is about .6 mile in (and another .6 out [grin]).

Our Letterboxing book listed several things to look for; we googled before we left so we’d have a chance of recognizing them. Honeysuckle, Mullein (pronounced Mullen), Horsetail, a couple of types of birds, we talked about what wetlands are, and were on the lookout for groundhog holes. Other than the birds, we saw all of the things listed; I’m impressed by how well this was set up. We saw at least 4, maybe 5, bunnies while we were at the park. Bunnies were not in the book, but were the favorite thing we saw for 3 of 3 Garrett children.

We found the letterbox which had a stamp for our book and a card which discussed the history of Mullein in the US. Immigrant families from Europe brought it with them for its many uses: its soft leaves were used under clothing for added warmth, as wicks for lamps, boiled (or smoked) as medicinal recipes, and its stalk was used to make torches by dipping it in animal fat. Pretty interesting stuff!

Honeysuckle:

Horsetail:

Mullein:

Finding the Letterbox:

The end of the hike: