I have climbed highest mountains, I have run through the fields

It was hardly even afternoon coffee break by the time we had finished with the railroad and all. bunny_hugger had something, though. She'd found some letterboxes we could try and fine. If we found the hidden boxes they'd be our first finds of the year (and, it would turn out, our first since Anthrohio 2022).

The first we tried was near an amphitheater, a nice-looking spot on the steepest hill ever known to humanity. This started out pretty well, following a trail of clues along a path on the hill behind the audience area. As often happens, this would fall apart as we got unsure about what features exactly we should be following. The clues had us go forty (or whatever) steps along a trail and then looking behind a set of four steps made from railroad ties. You wouldn't think this would be ambiguous but it was, and we were not doing well at all figuring out where this next step took us, never mind where the fourth step would take us. Add to that the risk of stepping in poison ivy and we gave the letterbox up as not found, with only mild confidence that we were looking in the right place.

We gave upon that and went to the other and, we though, more promising letterbox location. This was in a park park that had limited hours, ending at some hour close enough that we worried we'd miss it. The park I'm not sure I understood then, or now; there were parks department employees waving people around where to park, apparently because there's another part further on that's resident-access only. This, if I gather it right, is resident-access mostly because there's construction going on there. This offered the prospect of several letterboxes, though.

The next letterbox there wasn't any serious question about where it should have been. It described an obvious enough feature, unambiguous enough, and while you could quibble about where exactly it might be, it had to be within about six square feet of space to search. It wasn't there. Might have been the storms that wracked California early in the year and had something to do with the necessity of these repairs.

The next and final letterbox was off along a path we couldn't drive to because the roads were closed except to residents, for that construction stuff. There was a walking trail there, though, and that seemed practicable. I did have some doubts then. Starting off on a hike of unknown length, when it's cloudless sun and high 80s or low 90s Fahrenheit, without water or even sun hats (a lack we'd keep regretting the whole week), I know is how a lot of unfortunate stories start. On the other hand we weren't walking into the Grand Canyon. And there was a water fountain at the trail head.

Also after the first couple hundred feet there was shade. Our path mostly followed a small brook, babbling in a way that you don't get in Michigan's lower peninsula, which wants to return to the marshy swamp it was before colonizers intruded. We kept finding lovely tiny rapids or one-foot waterfalls, a river mush lusher and more alive than our local River Trail offers. Also anomalies; we tried to understand why there was a substantial block of what looked like 1920s-style tiled floor fallen off a riverbank with nothing on it. This turned out to be historical. The park had been developed as a recreational trail for a century or so, and in the early part of the 20th century they kept building up buildings to provide more services, scenic outlooks and resting spots and event spaces and all. Since then, the thinking of what to do with natural areas has changed, and most of the buildings were torn down or allowed to decay. So the tile floor segment was a piece of the changing views of how to interact with nature that we found.

What we did not find was the letterbox. We're tolerably confident we found where it most likely had been, near a set of benches that line the rim of a parking lot, accessible to the public when the road is not under repair. But while we could find places that would make great sense to hide the geocache-like treasure, we could not find the one that was intended. Or even come to perfect agreement about which bench to use as the reference point. The easy suspect to blame is the storms again, either washing away the letterbox or forcing the replacement of some of the landmarks used for it.

So we went 0-for-3 in letterbox-hunting. Could be worse, although it did turn out to be the only letterbox-hunting we did in California. By the time we got back --- delayed a while by the sight of a mother turkey and some chicks going about their business; we'd been delayed going out by deer wandering across the trail --- it was near enough sunset we felt okay going back to our hotel, and ordering food from that restaurant thingy we'd used the night before. And I swore up and down that getting the car switched for one with air conditioning would not be a problem. Off to bed.

But before you go to bed, why not look at some more pictures from the Fairy Tale Festival? Here's things to see ...

Monitor lizard that someone exhibiting something or other inside the Turner-Dodge House, billed as ``the real dragon'' living within.

THe lizard was tolerably willing to be seen in public but really wanted to get under the tables where they weren't allowed.

Bye!

We walked around the house seeing it in non-holiday livery. The living rrom still had its peacock theme, just, no Christmas tree or merry Santa.

The boy's bedroom on the second floor also wasn't very different from how it looks during Christmas. There's individual bits of holiday decoration that I think they leave up all year, such as this framed Harper's lithograph of a long ice slide in one of the Oranges, New Jersey.

Typewriter! People have had the fun of stomping the keys together.

Trivia: In the late 19th and early 20th century the United States Navy standardized no the Comptometer desktop calculating machine, introduced in 1890 by Felt & Tarrant, for its work in ship design. Source: Before the Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, and Remington Rand and the Industry They Created, 1865 - 1956, James W Cortada.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Sundays Supplement Volume 7: 1945, Bela Zaboly, Tom Sims. Editor Stephanie Noelle.