Gone - Toasted by a forest fire!

Gone as of Nov 5, 2006 - This box was found laying on the ground, empty. so it is destroyed.

Located in a park in Richardson, near Dallas, Texas. From Arapaho Rd, running west from a FLOCK-it-to-ME #4 placed by Celtic Lions, go north on Woodland Way to Woodland Park on your right.

Walk due south to the playground (not the elementary school playground). Begin walking on sidewalk between playground bench and tree towards restrooms on right, about 30 steps. Leave sidewalk and proceed 120 degrees SE diagonally across the field to opposite corner. The alley driveway with a gas meter box will be on your right. From edge of alley take about 28 steps back towards the school along the tree line and enter bushes on your right. Take 8 steps towards barbed wire fence. Note the fence pole straight ahead of you. On your right is a two-trunked tree with larger trunk leaning slightly forward towards field. Camouflage microbox is attached by camo Velcro to tree limb at bottom of smaller trunk. Please replace exactly where you found it, with Velcro secured!

Note: Placed in this new, safer home by the Celtic Lions in May 2005.

Where else to plant a flower than in an arboretum, right? So, after we flew into Houston in the pouring rain and realized that many of the trails we had hoped to hike to the northeast of there would be flooded, off we headed to Mercer Arboretum, just north of the airport on Aldine Westfield Rd. Even there, some of the trails were flooded, but walking along on a dry section of the West Oxbow loop, suddenly we were surprised to find ourselves stepping on little golfball sized yellow-orange orbs that spurted out what looked like kernels of corn!

What were those things we wondered? Well, it wasn't long before we had our answer! Rounding the corner, we just barely noticed the remnants of a sign on a post marked #11. "Trifoliate Orange" it read. "How perfect", we said - "we have a little box with an orange lid!" So, about 15 steps away from that sign at a bearing of 110, we left that little orange box with its RTRW flower in the right side of a rotting log, well tucked into the pithy middle. We hope that folks will replant it carefully in that spot for a year or so, and then, when the log becomes too rotten, perhaps transport it to a sunny new location! Thanks.

Well, imagine our surprise to hear that the "Lone Star Start" letterbox that we had planted in March of 2005 had melted due to a fire near the beginning of that trail in the Sam Houston National Forest in 2006! "No problem", we said. "We'll just plant another, but this time we'll add a surprise twist". So, on our 2006 Texas trip we planted a microbox very close to the western trailhead terminus of the LSHT about 4 miles east of Richards and just south on forest road 219. However - here's the important part - we hope the box won't stay there! We're actually hoping that all those Texas letterboxers we met, as well as those we didn't, will little by little walk it the 126 miles or so east, so that by the time we get back out there to hike the rest of the trail ourselves, our little black film container will have already covered the whole distance!

So, here's the deal: it's like a relay! Each person who goes to find the box can carry it further along the trail as far as he or she wishes: a quarter mile, a mile, 5 miles, or whatever, as long as it's all done on foot! (No fair taking the box and driving it around to the next trailhead, although creating "shuttles" to hike through to the next road crossing and meet another car there would be heartily encouraged!) Anyway, after the box gets planted in its next temporary "camping spot", we will update the clues here so that the next searcher will know where to pick it up to carry it along on the next leg of its journey. Hopefully, no two groups will decide to do the same leg on the very same day, but to help that not happen, we'll be happy to keep a projected schedule here, as well as listing each hiker's completed walk, and where to find the box next. (Please feel free to take that piece of concrete along to cover the box, too!) Hope this works, and everyone gets a piece of the "cheese"!

Dec 25, 2006 Will's World

'Twas the day of Christmas
Along the Lone Star Trail
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a snail
Well, now that I say it
That's not quite right
'Cause me and my family
Made quite a sight
We sloshed and we stomped
Through the forest with care
Wondering where the end was
And when would we get there
It had rained the day before
And the day before that
The ground was soggy
And mom wore a hat

Lone Star Surprise,
It's journey begun,
Hitched a ride with us
To join in the fun
3 miles we went
Or maybe some more
At the end of our travels
We were quite sore
Soon the December sun
Down Texas way
Dipped below the horizon
To end a very good day.

The new location of Lone Star Surprise is at the trail head of the Little Lake Creek Wilderness section of the Lone Star Hiking Trail. The parking lot for that section is 2 miles south of the junction of FM 149 and FM 1791 on FS 211 (also called Bethel Rd). After you go through the hiker's gate at the trail head walk along the path for 12 steps toward a rise in the trail. Turn left and look for a large Loblolly Pine with two white metal trail markers attached to it 18 steps off the trail. The microbox is located between the pine and a smaller oak tree behind it. The small slab of concrete also made the journey and is proudly sitting on top of the box.

Jan 15, 2007 Catitude

The last we saw Lonestar Surprise
It was doing well
Waiting patiently
To tag along on the trail
Along we came
Me and Catitude
To leave it behind
Would have been rude
The day was cold
The day was wet
But when you are racing an arctic front
That is just what you get
We rambled on
Along the muddy track
Slipping and falling and knee twisting
Till mud covered my back
We finished the trip
Just before the rain
And parted company
With just a little knee pain

Lonestar Surprise is now near the North Wilderness Parking Lot located on FM 149, 9 miles north of the junction of FM 149 and TX 105 in Montgomery County. The parking lot is on the west side of the road. You will have to back track a little. From the trail head in the parking lot follow the trail for 125 feet. You will see a tree on the right with a trail marker on it. Look to the right of the trail and you will see an isolated burnt stump that stands about two and a half feet high. Lonestar Surprise is located at the base of the stump underneath the well traveled concrete slab. To send Lonestar Surprise on it's way, you will have to return to the parking lot and cross over FM 149 onto the Kelly section of the LSHT.

Aug 31, 2008 2Grls1Guy

Park at North Wilderness Lot. Carefully crossover FM 149. At trail sign travel approximately 150 steps until trail meets Forestry Access Road. Starting at the corner post count 100 steps to the right (trail splits left after 25 steps) underbrush is real thick. You will find a small log on the left side of the trail. The well traveled concrete slab is on top of the micro box behind log

Apr 6, 2009 2Grls1Guy

We have moved it again, this is a very long trail!! From 149 North, Montgomery, approximately 8 miles to Osburn Rd., turn right approximately 1 mile parking lot on the left. Hint: Facing the trail from the 7 parking poles. Walk 200 steps look for a small oak stump next to a large pine (you are in the middle of a pine forest). Microbox is covered by the well traveled concrete slab.

Well, as we were getting ready for our last letterboxing trips out west in the late winter of early 2009, we asked the Travelers 4 of MA if they had anything carved up that they'd like for us to take out there with us. Turns out that T2 had a couple of fellows who were done tired of hanging 'round the Christmas tree in several feet of snow and the single digit temperatures of New England, so they graciously got "volunteered" to accompany us on our western journeys. Since they weren't quite prepared for our short jaunt through CalNevAri, though, it looked like they'd be joining us in Texas instead!

Actually, we weren't sure that Texas would be the best type of adventure on which to be taking these "men of winter" either. After all, we were planning mostly on hiking, NOT the "4 Seasons Trail", but the "4C Trail": a flat, hot, 20 miler in a different type of piney woods from what these guys were used to back in New England, and with a very limited "season" indeed! From November to January the trail and forest apparently gets overrun with "hunters" quite unlike the ones these guys usually expected, and for much of the rest of the year, it would probably be just too hot for guys like these accustomed to colder weather!

These, however, were "men on a mission", so they decided to march out with us during our "small window of late winter opportunity" to the site of the first "Mission Tejas" established in 1680 along "El Camino Real de Tejas". They seriously considered stopping there for a while by the old wagon ruts which supposedly marked the only place left in over a thousand miles where they could walk in those particular "actual footsteps of history", but apparently several other folks had recently had the same idea, so, not wanting to cause overcrowding in the big state of Texas, they decided to move along a bit further with us in search of quieter quarters.

So, after a quick peek at the "3C" baths and an old pepper tree that surprisingly contained some extra provisions, we headed down the road a short distance east, then south, then east again to finally hit the trailhead for the "4C" trail at its northern end near Neches Overlook. Making one last pit stop and checking for any tidbits that might be left hidden in the eaves, the men of winter followed us and the harvester ants along the scorched path south, finding but little evidence of former planting or habitation among the blackened tree trunks.

Onward we trod for several miles, first overlooking the river then following along under power lines, crossing a road with a subsequent horseshoe crab-shaped pond, another road with pond shortly thereafter, and numerous boardwalk bridges. By now the first man literally felt like he was "melting", and by the time we crossed the third road, he simply could not contain himself further! Off he dashed down the trail to plunge into the next available mudhole pond on the right, and quickly disappeared into the dank, dark waters! Not a trace of him could be found, so, in the end, all we could do was leave a memento of what he used to look like in a slender three foot stump on the left side of the trail about 46 steps south of mile marker 15 just south of the nearby bridge. There were actually a couple of violets blooming atop this natural pedestal at the time we placed his image there to rest, and we hope that they might still be blooming there in his memory for many springs to come!

We continued south along the trail then with just the second man, who soon began moaning that he was getting "burnt to a crisp"! It was just a few more miles to shelter, so we thought he might be OK if we could just get him there and give him some omega-3s at the nearby creek. When we got there, however, after following the dry, snaking creek bed for quite awhile, we found the ground around it all torn up with diced up trees and no water in immediate sight, and we guess this second man must have just panicked or gone nuts, too, because he went tearing down the trail towards the bridge to the south, shouting "catch me if you can!", then crumbled to the ground just 46 steps before he got to the stream crossing! More in view of his fear of getting burnt rather than crumbling away from dehydration, we tucked a memento for him into the top of a thin 2 foot tall natural pedestal just a few feet left of the trail, similar to that of his friend back at the pond, but with a crumbly ginger-colored rock at the top in lieu of the blooming violets.

Anyway, that's the story of these two "men of winter" from MA who hit the dusty trail in Texas! They may have barely made it half way along the trail, but they did fulfill their mission: to leave a little piece of themselves behind for others to find on what might otherwise be a rather long and lonely journey! We would love to hear from anyone who might chose to follow in their footsteps, whether they hike the whole trail or even just a short segment. And we would especially love it if some folks would plant more boxes on the southern part of the trail to lure us back again in a few years to finish up the rest of the trail ourselves!

We found this Dolphin stamp left by someone at the Old Pepper Tree as a bonus for the next finders. Not knowing what quite what to do with it, we decided to leave it as an extra provision for the "The Men of Winter" as they started out their trek at mile marker 20 on the "4 C" trail. We figured that this spot, near the pit stop, would not be as subject to "prescribed burns" as some of the other areas nearby. So, if you care to find an extra stamp, just look up in the eaves nearest the path to see if the Dolphin still lurks there!

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