Friday, October 3, 2008

UMaine Trails

August 16, 2008

Once upon a time Agent S. was working in the lab on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and declared "what the heck am I doing! It is summer! I should be outside!"
Fortunately a quick phone call to OnTheCorner arranged a letterboxing play date on the University Trail ... conveniently located in close proximity to the afore-mentioned laboratory, and soon an adventure was under way!There are two letterboxes on this trail: The Giving Tree and A Horse Named Chip. The tree we found quite easily at the intersection of trails 3 and 5. Still had plenty of energy and a fair amount of daylight ... might as well find that horse! Hmmm. this clue is written a bit funny ... aren't we on trail 3 still? and now an intersection ... "don't take trail 9 unless you want to be carried off by mosquitoes. bear right - this is trail 7. then turn right on trail 8 again" ... well ok, so even though we are clearly at the intersection of 7,8, and 9 and 8 is the trail we ultimately want, we followed the bit about turning right on 7. And we walked. And we walked. And then we found ... treasure? no. Bambi! And lots of Bambi's friends! (Inspiration for our new stamp carvings, Thumper and Flower)
Still following Trail 7 ... why isn't it meeting anything? Why is it so muddy? Why didn't I bring a machete to beat back all these weeds? Reach another intersection and a sign proclaiming the Old Town mill. Clearly we have gone waaaayyyy too far ... wait! now we have to turn around and go back throgh all that!! Return to the intersection of 7,8 and 9 (Finally!) ... think perhaps we should just check a little way down 8 ... because it's getting pretty dark, but after all of that searching we'd better get something else to show for this hike! Sure enough that elusive horse named chip was only around the next bend of trail 8 ... mission completed! (Time to get out of these woods ... is that thunder i hear?!)
But sometimes there are unexpected benefits to getting lost in the woods - wouldn't have seen this truly applaudable sunset if we had taken the right path!

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