letterboxing! and a magnificent obsession

on one of the first warm days of the spring, we went on a field trip. the fact that it was 2 miles from the house was besides the point. there is an old, former railroad track that they've turned into a nice bike trail. and that is where our adventure began.



it wasn't an easy one to find. there was still some snow on the trail, and the one main marker we needed to find had been knocked down flat. but eagle-eye nick eventually found it. but not before pete found this:


a large patch of bamboo. you see, pete has an obsession with pandas. he wanted one so badly last year that he got a small one, with a book. which led him to ask beg grandma to get him one for his birthday (which she abliged, with a video). but a bigger, stuffed panda wasn't what he had in mind. he wanted a real one. and he asked anyone to get him one for christmas. he had it all worked out. room to sleep under his bed or in his spare closet. lots of water. but we finally convinced him that we couldn't afford the huge amounts of bamboo a panda would need to ingest daily.

that's why when we came upon this patch of bamboo on the side of our letterboxing trail, he stopped dead in his tracks. and you could see the wheels turning.......

on our way back to the car, the firemen were out doing 2 separate trainings (we were really close and i was trying to be clandestine). the trail runs next to their training grounds. it was fun to watch.