Rogue River...Gold Hill, OR

2.13.2005 We awoke early the following morning and ventured out to find Shan’s Christmas box—not knowing it was actually in the very park we’d chosen to camp in the night prior. We quickly meandered a neat trail along the gorgeous Rogue River and secured Shan’s precious stamp in our journal; rather delighted to add another legerdemaine classic in the process (the gosling—a copy of JJ Lankes 1st stamp HH). One adventure down, how many more to go? We then set our sights upon a glimmer of hope in Gold Hill—just a few short miles further south along our route. We quickly locate the park and start upon our hike—stumbling upon a unique array of dams, canals and waterways along the way. Who knew this sort of engineering marvel existed so close along the interstate trail we traveled hundreds of times in the past. We quickly find the letterbox but are deflated a bit when we realize the stamp was nowhere to be found. Of course, being the ever prepared letterboxer errant that I am, I have my trusty pouch of letterboxing maintenance materials along for the ride (Ziploc freezer bags, pens, logbooks, markers—but the two items I forgot to pack this particular trek were my carving tool and extra carving medium). So, always wanting to leave a letterbox better than the way we found it I attempt to recreate the stamp in a piece of fir bark I find on the trail using my steel pen nib as the carving device. I succeed in carving a stamp (destroying my only ‘nice’ pen along for the trip) that will actually transfer ink from the bark to paper but otherwise the attempt was a dismal failure. So, it truly turned into a misadventure of sorts.