How many?

States, that is!

The kids are in definite stay-at-home moods, meaning dragging them out to go letterboxing is practically pointless. Outside, it's that thick pea-soupy, probably gonna rain humidity that makes every step feel like five anyway.

So, I'm on the computer, planning our big summer road trip to South Carolina and wondering how many letterboxes I can realistically get on the way (and still get where we're going). It's a route we've taken before, for the most part, so we probably won't add any new states to our list. I've found that taking our time and meandering a bit on the way there works best. On the way home, everyone is ready for vacation to be over, and they groan every time I mention stopping for a letterbox.

I try to intersperse finding letterboxes and doing things that the other members of the family enjoy. Luckily, there are often letterboxes planted at cool parks and interesting sights. It's a lot of planning work, but it usually makes things easier when we're actually on the road.

So far, we've successfully boxed in 11 states:

Alabama
California
Florida
Georgia
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas

What about you? Leave a comment if you like and let us know how many states you've found boxes in...

Puzzling out Puzzles

I've been contemplating how to answer Sandibox's question about multiple digit codes...and I need some more time to figure out how to share techniques without giving too much away. I think the tri-fold rewards of a puzzle box are

1. the aha moment when you get a gem of an idea of how to solve the puzzle,
   
2. successfully working out the solution, and then
   
3. realizing your prize.
   

But, I also realize that a lot of people don't even try with these boxes because they don't know where to begin. I'm going to attempt to walk that fine line between giving you starter hints and spoonfeeding you too much information.

One thing I've definitely decided is that I'm going to plant a puzzle box specifically for this blog and walk you through the solving of it (as a group exercise). This means that the playing field will be even for all solvers (rather than giving away big hints to an existing box that some people have already spent long, agonizing hours trying to figure out). I haven't gotten this box in place yet or decided where to place it, although the stamp is carved.

One of the math-literacy building exercises I sometimes do with my children is to note the different ways numbers are used in everyday life--stats in the sports section of the newspaper, prices at the store, weights on products, daily high temperatures, etc. That's not a bad place to start thinking about possible cyphers, codes and encryption that use numbers.

I have used classical cyphers and encryption techniques at times (and you certainly should familiarize yourself with these), but other times I make up methods that you can't search out on Google. To get you started thinking about possibilities, the box I'll hide for the blog will be called Customer Service and the clues will feature one of those befuddling codes like this (2.6, 1.3, 2.9, 1.10). If you want, feel free to leave comments or email some possibilities about what that might mean...before the clues are even published...that might help you and other potential solvers. Working together is always great; handing someone a solution is a definite no-no.

Unfortunately, sometimes all looking at a sea of numbers does is befuddle you further. You have to look past the numbers and puzzle out what they mean.

In closing, if something seems out of place or even a tiny bit odd, you might want to explore it further.



click here

Mystery Box Hint #1 - Cryptograms

Apparently, I do requests here on the blog. In response to this overwhelming demand (one person) for my knowledge, I could do an "Ask Dewberry" column, but I'm probably too opinionated to make that work. So, I'll just stick to this one request for some hints on how to tackle mystery boxes.

Now, I don't want to give anything away, so I'll stick to the generic, rather than the specific.

1. Go get a copy of Games Magazine. You'll be amazed at the sheer number of different kinds of puzzles. By working them (with the solutions in the back), you'll sharpen your puzzle solving skills. It might even give you some ideas.

2. Sometimes hiders will let you know what type of puzzle you're dealing with. Sometimes they won't. Trial and error is the only way to go in the latter situation.

3. A lot of mystery boxes use cryptograms, where one single variable subsitutes for each letter (called a simple substitution cypher). Everywhere you see this particular variable, it will represent the same letter (unlike more complicated cyphers & cryptography).

4. To solve this type of puzzle, look for patterns. For instance, a word like YULQL with YUL elsewhere in the puzzle probably translates to There and The. Singleton words usually stand for a, as a hider is unlikely to use I in the clues. I also will look for something that shares the pattern of common words in letterbox clues, like trail, tree, under, look, pine, box, etc.

5. You can make cryptograms out of anything...symbols, wingdings, numbers, pictures, etc. If you're looking at a sea of numbers and none of them are greater than 26 in the puzzle, chances are decent there is a 1-1 correspondance between each number and a letter a-z. Sometimes the encryption will follow a rule, such as every encrypted letter will be two higher in the alphabet than the actual letter it stands for, or the encryption can be much more random.

6. Once you get going, you'll be able to fill in some of your blanks through context. Working back and forth between letters you've solved and the context you're building will help you progress even more.

Cryptograms are probably the most common way of encrypting clues. They are also the easiest to solve, so starting here is a good idea.

Next time, I'll tackle a different type of encryption. Not sure what yet, though. Any requests?

Missing Boxes

Recently, it's been doing a lot of raining! In Houston the rain will come down too quickly for the storm sewers to handle. The result=street flooding. This is my washed-out corner one recent rainy afternoon. Usually, there's a sidewalk and a road here. Luckily, within 30 minutes, the flood was gone.

I have had some truly lonely boxes. For the longest time, there was just a small group of us placing and finding boxes in the greater Houston area. Once Silver Eagle, Baby Bear, Birds of a Feather, TeamKing, and Mother of Five had found your box, that was pretty much all the finders it was going to have. Sure, Gryzzled Gryphon would swoop in, and a lot of the boxes would sometimes have an occasional out-of-town visitor (or school would let out and Runs for Chocolate would go on a tear). There were others who letterboxed periodically or would become active for a short spate of time and then fade away. However, for the most part, that was our small, but merry group. And letterboxes would sit for months at a time without finders.

That’s why I never worried about replacing missing boxes. Almost all the finders who were going to find the box had already found it. So, instead of replacing old boxes, I would concentrate my efforts on creating and hiding new ones so that our little band would have new quarry to hunt.

Along the way, I discovered that Mother of Five shares my love of puzzle boxes and that Silver Eagle, although not that enthusiastic, will definitely solve them & go find the box. So I did a lot of planting for this audience. Sometimes it was just two or three people finding a box…and that was really okay, because the finders really loved and appreciated those boxes that they had to work so hard to find.

HINT: If you’re reading this, maybe you’d like to know that Celestial Elemental is in the general Pasadena/Clear Lake area…so that this box can be found by someone other than the one lonely finder over the last year.

And now, all of a sudden…over the last six months, we have a slew of new boxers around our greater metro area. I am getting regular find reports on a lot of boxes and that has me wondering, should I replace some of the oldies? A lot of them had very clever clues or were I think, just fun one way or another. They weren't all hard (some were), but each one had a unique twist. Mainly, to solve them required an AHA moment!

Most of the new finders haven’t developed a thirst for the puzzlers (yet, I hope). Even though most of my puzzle boxes are still sitting lonely and unfound, I hold out the hope that someone will start solving them (and those are my best carves, usually). If I did see an interest, I think I might start replacing some of the oldies but goodies instead of just planting new ones.

Below: more fun mushrooms in a tree. That ominous grey sky? Sure enough it led very shortly to a torrential downpour, meaning we had to cut short Sunday's letterboxing outing.

Go Owls!

We're a baseball family.

The kids play and we spend many hours at the baseball fields. On a nice evening, we love nothing more than going to any baseball game--whether it be t-ball or the pros--or anything in between.

We're also Rice alums (as is fellow boxer Astro D), and were among the few when we were at school because we actually went to games. Back then, crowds were small and prospects weren't all that good. But, it was still fun.

Now, going to a Rice baseball game is a true treat--there's a great stadium, fun promotions, and outstanding baseball on the field. We were lucky enough to have tickets for both the regional and the super regional this year, watching and cheering as the Owls secured their berth in the College World Series.

So, to celebrate this accomplishment, we've planted a temporary box. Please come find it and give the Owls your best wishes for a successful tournament (first game vs. Louisville is Friday, June 15). Plans are to leave it out for a month, meaning it would be pulled mid-July.

There is a small puzzle to this one. To help you, and for this box only, dewberry will answer ONE yes-and-no question. Just aq mail or email her. The excitement of the CWS must have gone to her head, because this is definitely unusual.

Go Owls!

On Drivebys and Lazy Letterboxing

Ordinarily, I'm just not a big fan of drive-by letterboxes. But, that's because ordinarily I think they're done rather poorly. Too often, there's a box hidden in a bush at the edge of a parking lot (sometimes on private property). There's no rhyme or reason to WHY it's there, and the whole point is to get in and out as quickly as possible. You wouldn't want to stop...because there's nothing to see that you couldn't see a million other places.

There are exceptions to this. FFFF near Chattanooga ranks as one of my favorite boxes ever. And it's a drive-by. It's just so enchanting, a totally unexpected little gem of a surprise. And the clues are fun too. As was the hiding mechanism. Really, it had it all.

When you're on a road trip, a quick find (as long as it's at an interesting location or at least somewhere you can stretch your legs) can be a wonderful thing!

We found a nice box yesterday, part of the Clear Lake Celtic series, that was a drive by. But, on an unbelievably sticky day, the little teeny pocket park where it was planted was like an oasis. We all gave that one a thumbs up (the pout on my younger son's face has nothing to do with the park and everything to do with having his picture taken).

And to be fair, I have planted drive-bys myself. I have a straight-forward one in Kerrville at this charming tiny park right on the water. And Houston's so hot & humid in the summer that long walks (particularly with children) are hard, unless you're up at the crack of dawn. So I did plant some around town--primarily mysteries, where the hard work of the box is in the figuring out the location, but the retrieval is simple. I'd like to do a few more like this, but I haven't been in that much of a planting or puzzle-figuring mood recently. Luckily, we have a few new active planters, so we've been able to enjoy finding some great boxes. I'm sure we'll be back to planting soon.

So, although I don't get into the vast majority of drive-by boxes, what I am a big fan of is a sort of Lazy Letterboxing. For us, this means taking our time and enjoying what we see, along the way...rather than hurrying to the next box. We may stop for an impromptu snack along a lake and just watch the water, climb trees for an hour, skip stones, hunt the perfect hiking stick or watch two birds dive and circle each other or turtles lazily swim. The reward to this letterboxing approach is usually something interesting or unique along the way--like this fungus high in the tree we spotted at a park in Baytown.

Lazy Letterboxing means that you can't find all the boxes on your list...that you have to throw out the goals and the agenda...and be satisfied with finding fewer boxes than you know you could. But we've found through experience that sometimes less is a lot more.

Racerunner

McKinney Roughs, a LCRA nature park near Bastrop, Texas is yet another one of those places we might not have ventured if it weren't for letterboxing. It has a fun little visitors' center, and a number of great trails.

Thanks to the four boxes at the park, we've been a couple of times to hike and enjoy the wildlife. We'd like to return and plant one of our own.

Above, you'll see a great photo Asterix took of an animal indigenous to the park; we saw a number of them, but this was our most close-up experience. In addition to our photos, we have a great memory in our logbook thanks to Silver Eagle.

Prairie-lined racerunner Cnemidophorus sexlineatus viridis
The racerunner lizard has seven light stripes on a bright green head and body. It grows to 10 inches long. It is diurnal (active during the day) and is bold when foraging for its insect prey.

A Tree for Houston

I love the reforestation efforts going on in my neighborhood. Every day I see more and more wildlife happily coexisting with people. Today I saw a pretty red-headed woodpecker (not the bird in the picture--that's from a different day). A diverse tree population is a pleasure for all!

Recently, I carved a State Tree stamp for a project and needed a place to hide it. It's also been a while since I stashed a clue here on the blog. Perfect! In honor of this attempt at Urban Reforestation along White Oak Bayou...I present: A Tree for Houston!

start here:

From this spot, cross over to the park along the bayou. Walk on the path eastward toward White Oak Bayou. As you approach, you should see a sign with a left arrow pointing to 11th street and a right arrow pointing to Watonga. Don't go that far. See that line of trees just before you get there? Follow it to the left. Go 38 steps, look right (not far into the woods) to a medium tree with two trunks wrapped around each other. My tree is on the far side beneath some straw and grass.

No poison ivy at this spot, but plenty along the bayou.

At times, you'll have to be sneaky as this spot can be active with dog walkers and exercisers. If you bring your bike, you can follow the hike and bike trail all the way up to Watonga, which is a nice ride. If you feel like a bit more walk, you can take the trail south across the bridge and end up on 11th street. If you walk west for a few blocks, you're at 11th Street Park, which has several letterboxes.

This box is currently not listed on any letterbox site--it's just your bonus for reading the blog. If you feel the compunction, you can "log" your find by adding a comment to the post.