“If you find a letterbox and it doesn’t have a stamp, do you log it as a find on Atlas Quest?” – Henry David Thoreau

This quote is obviously not from Thoreau but I have a feeling he would have been an avid boxer had he known about it.

Fox and I recently went letterboxing in the middle of January in my home burrow. We were visiting my family and couldn’t resist going out on the hunt while we were there. Three days before we left, the forecast said there was a 40% chance of snow for that day. The day before we left, it said it would be cloudy with a slight chance of scattered flurries. We have a saying in my state, “If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes.” No truer words have ever been spoken. It ended up being a cold, cloudy, virtually windless day with spitting rain here and there. All in all, not a bad day for wintertime boxing.

After a delicious lunch of greens with my parents (Fox had pork chops), we bid them farewell and set off on our hunt! Our first destination was a historic house not too far from my parent’s burrow. We followed the clues and found the hollowed out tree that the box was supposed to be in but all that was there was the container with no lid! It was filled with leaves and a lone logbook, which was completely soaked and almost beyond recognition. My planter’s heart almost broke at the sight of it. We looked around the area and saw two empty Ziploc baggies lying on the ground a few feet from the tree. Fox investigated further and his sly senses led him to the lid of the box. So now all we were missing was the stamp. Which of course is the most important part of a letterbox, the heart one could say. So we scoured the area but we never did find the stamp. The box was planted ten years ago so at least it had a good run. We were disappointed but felt more sorry for the planter who has now lost the stamp.

Next, we were the first finders on a box planted about a month ago near a gas station, a quick drive-by. Then another drive-by at a restaurant. We also scored a box inside a comic store. I don’t like boxes in stores as much, I don’t get to get my paws dirty, but I understand why people chose to plant there. If you have the store owner’s permission, the plant should be safe and sound for a long time and you don’t have to worry about the elements.

Our next stop was a cemetery where two boxes were patiently waiting. It was dusk by the time we got there and we discovered that the cemetery closed in thirty minutes. The clue for one of the boxes said that you enter the cemetery on S. Main St. The other clue said you enter the cemetery on W. Main St. We entered on W. Main St. I was pretty sure that the S. Main St. clue was a typo, but it’s a large cemetery so it was possible there were multiple entrances. I’ve always found boxing in a cemetery to be challenging. It’s usually hard to read the signs, find the tombstones referenced and figure out where you are going. Especially with night quickly approaching.

We finally saw a unique tombstone referenced in one of the clues and stopped in front of it. From there, it was easy to find the tombstone that hid our prize. The tombstone had a very large mound of dirt in front of it. In typical bunny fashion, I just stepped right into it with my big bunny boots and started rooting around. In typical clever fox fashion, Fox went around to the back of the tombstone and quickly found the box without getting a speck of dirt on him. Hmph.

We had about fifteen minutes to find the other box and had no idea where we were or where the correct entrance was if there were multiple entrances so we felt it would be safer to call it a day. We didn’t know what would happen if we were still inside after closing and didn’t want to find out. So that was a bit disappointing but couldn’t be helped.

On the way home, we stopped to get a night box. I had already found it years before, it was actually one of the first boxes I found. The box was buried under a rock in the mud. I had forgotten to bring my letterboxing towel so I set it down on a piece of paper in my lap and tried not to get mud all over me. Fox and I have determined that it’s harder to stamp-in in a car than it seems. You’re constantly asking yourself, “Where is this, where is that and where did the clue sheet go?” And then the pen drops between the seat and center console.

We had quite the spirited discussion on the way home about the decimated box we found at the historic house. I logged the box as found on Atlas Quest and explained the condition in the comments. Fox said that he wasn’t going to log it as a find because we hadn’t found the stamp, therefore it didn’t count as a find. He said we shouldn’t count any box as found if it didn’t have a stamp. He even insinuated that I was purposely trying to pad my find count! My little bunny ears were twitching and my cheeks were aflame with righteous indignation.

I maintained that we had found the box, so it should count as a find even though the stamp was not present. I couldn’t mark the box as missing because it wasn’t missing, it was there, it was just a mess. He maintained that the stamp is the most important part of the box and if it’s not there, you can’t record it in your logbook, therefore, it shouldn’t count as a find. So, we would like to hear from you to settle this debate. It’s the letterboxing equivalent of the saying, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” If you find a letterbox and it doesn’t have a stamp, do you log it as a find on Atlas Quest? I say yes, Fox says no and we are both pretty confident in our positions.

Overall, it was a successful day of boxing and as usual, it was anything but boring. We found seven boxes (six if you ask Fox). We don’t plan on doing any more wintertime letterboxing but who knows where the road will lead us. Let us know about your wintertime boxing experiences in the comments below and don’t forget to weigh in on our debate! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Even though this bunny knows she is right!