Monday, July 6, 2009

Hitchhikers

The saying "If you love something, let it go..." is a bit melodramatic for letterboxing Hitchhikers, but it does apply. When you release a HH into the wild, you have no control over that stamp and no guarantees. I've only created a handful of them, but I've had pretty good luck, I think. Probably because I plant them and then promptly forget about them. When a find report pops into my mailbox, it is always a pleasant surprise.
"Butterflight" was my very first HH. The girls and I created it when we were raising Monarch caterpillars the first year we started boxing. The butterfly is a two part stamp; one piece for black and one for orange. It was hacked out of a piece of mastercarve and sent on it's way with the hopeful instruction that it should migrate to the west coast. Somewhere along the way, the stamp broke and some beautiful person mounted it to a wood block. I received scattered reports of it's movements and awhile back was completely surprised when it and it's full logbook arrived home in my mailbox--all the way from the west coast. After a successful run, it was retired.
"Al Capone's Getaway Car" was created for the Great Atlas Quest HH exchange (or something like that) where I exchanged with mokeymiddle from Portland. She sent me her "Stumptown HH" which I have run across several times since then.
Last I knew, Al's car had been found in Jay's Toolbox.
"Global HH" started out in the International Triple postal ring, where it traveled around the US, UK and Canada. It currently resides in my craft cabinet, but with a new logbook it will be ready to travel once more.
"Hardanger HH" was a special creation. After DH had his surgery in the Twin Cities, he was trying to rest and recover and I was bouncing around the hotel room like a pinball. He made the mistake of asking if I didn't have any clues with me. I didn't return until after dark.
I drove up along the gorgeous St Croix river to Scandia, where I found a whole slug of fantastic Scandinavian themed letterboxes by She Who Plants. One of them was the "It's Been a Quiet Week in My Hometown HHH." After such a great day, I wanted to send a thank you. Since controversy seems to surround inflicting a poor, hapless hitchhiker with what some consider a prison sentence, I decided to make a HH that could happily stay in the Scandia hostel for the rest of it's natural life. Hardanger is a Norwegian needlepoint and I carved the stamp from one of my pattern books. It could have turned out better. I mailed it up to Art Gekko (I think) and it was added to the HHH. It has long since moved on though.
Last and certainly least is the "Hydrant HH". This one is neither success of failure. Yet. I created a box for a letterboxer in the Sacramento area a couple of years ago and it has yet to be planted. The stamp was of a Dalmatian dog. The hitchhiker went with the box and included instructions to try to keep it in Dog themed boxes. Eh.

I do have one other release, Bedtime Buddy, that went into the Bear themed boxes in Troy Grove. It was a recycled stamp.

1 comment:

  1. I don't know how many times I have expressed those same sentiments about hitchhikers. I have many, many of them out there moving around and I always tell folks not to be attached to them. After all, they are not for the creator, but for the finder *shrug*

    I've gotten some HHs back home, and have a bunch that need to be reconditioned and ready to travel again, but I never expect to see them again. It is most certainly a surprise when they are found and someone actually logs the find.

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