Maintenance & Mumblings

I've had some bad box reports recently...

• Pirate's Puzzle has been co-opted by geocachers, with the stamp gone. This one was in place before the geocache (for over 2 years) and had happily co-existed with the cache for a long time. But, all it takes is one geocacher who doesn't know about letterboxing, and all the labeling in the world won't save your stamp.
• Georgie and the Dragon, a short series, was swept away in the recent Spring Creek Flooding. I'm torn about whether to replace it or not. The clues were in story form, and a favorite for kids. But, I often put new boxes out when others go so that the loyal letterboxers in this area will have something new to find. I have fears for some other boxes along Spring Creek, but am not sure when I'll get out to check on them. My kids aren't keen on letterboxing in 95 degree weather.
  
• Abita Beer is gone too, lost to park redevelopment. This is one I really struggle over whether to replace or not. It's located 6 1/2 hours from my house, so it's not one I'm going to get to very often. There just aren't that many letterboxers in the area. But, the box survived Hurricane Katrina and the downed trees in the area, and lasted for almost a year in a temporary spot due to a park closure. And, the park where it is located is an idyllic little spot, with the added draw of the brewpub next door. I just love the placement. And it so happens that we'll be back by there in about 3 weeks. I'm leaning towards replacement, but will have to rely on the kindness of others for maintenance help. There are lots of schools of thought about whether long-distance box placement is a good idea, and I've never really made up my mind one way or another.
  

Anyway, I braved mud & mosquitos to check on these boxes today: Surrender Dorothy!, Magical Mystery Tour and Stop and Look are all where they need to be. A couple finders have been working on Dorothy, so far to no avail (no finders since last December). Dorothy is the box that has given a lot of people fits, so I wanted to make sure the final reward was in place. Two of the boxes need new containers, but their contents were nice and dry in spite of the rain. The log housing MMT has started to degrade, so I'm going to consider moving that one. But, it's been returned to its hiding space for now.

I went to another section of Memorial Park to check on Team King's birthday boxes and another mysterious box with hard-to-find clues. However, when confronted with a lake of ankle deep green algae, I let the heat win and decided to check on them another day.