1064. "Victory at Katahdin" Continues into the 20's...
RI Mystery

The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has given us a chance to check on some of the many old boxes we planted in RI years ago, but haven't bothered to check in more recent times. Let's face it, with over 1000 plants now around the world and far too many other things to do, checking old boxes has not really been a high priority for us!;-) Besides, sometimes it seems that trails, terrain, trees and such have changed so much over time that we can't even find our own old boxes! Once in a while, though, we get lucky, and find an old box of ours buried beneath a tree that fell over on it long ago or something like that, so we might decide to relocate it to a nearby spot. Or we might decide to "demystify" some of our old clues for "mystery" boxes of ours that have never been found or that haven't been found for a very long time. These, then, are some of the boxes that we have chosen to label with "Continues into the 20's…"

This particular box was a gift from Investigator Bacon many years ago, to be used as a mystery box for those completing the "Wanda's Wanda-rings" series, depicting the "grand finale" of my backpacking over 30,000 miles on many long-distance trails including the Continental Divide Trail from Mexico to Canada, the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada (3+ times!!!) and the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine (5+ times!!!!!). Several people have found this box over the years, but there are so many pages left in the logbook to fill (especially if using both sides of the pages;-), and the box itself was still in such pristine condition when we last checked on it that we chose to leave it in the same cozy hiding place along its own eponymous trail, well-sheltered from the elements. We are leaving the clues for this one basically the same, too, asking only that letterboxers refrain from looking for this box if anyone else happens to be anywhere in the vicinity, so as not to give away its "secret location", beaming behind a brick or inadvertently getting their hands nearly "caught in the cookie jar"!;-)

Anyway, here is the original clue, with just a few extra hints now added:

"VICTORY AT KATAHDIN" A mystery box from the "mystery man" himself, currently planted somewhere in the woods of the Arcadia Management Area in Exeter, RI

Having often been intrigued by mysteries over the course of our long letterboxing career, and delighted at having been able to solve quite a few very cool ones ourselves, we wondered if a certain intermittently resurfacing investigator might be willing to contribute a box for our semi-"retirement" from letterboxing party in 2011. Curiously enough, he said, "yes", as long as the clue contained some element of mystery. I told him about a certain very memorable sandwich I had received as a special treat on my fifth time backpacking through on the AT from two guys who were preparing their camp dinner to stay overnight along the trail in southern Vermont: hot-off-the-grill sizzling crisp bacon with melted peanut butter on fresh pumpernickel bread - remarkably delicious for this hungry long-distance backpacker - and that sandwich became the basis for this clue to represent my last few hundred miles to finish up my AT#5, as well as the continuity of threads of intrigue, cloaked in poetry, right up to that final summit!

PB Bacon on Pump on my final AT at a place in Vermont called Seth Warner; Find the only place like it in Arcadia and investigate its southwest corner!

Copyright (c) Wanda and Pete. All Rights Reserved.

BEFORE YOU SET OUT, PLEASE READ THE WAIVER OF RESPONSIBILITY AND DISCLAIMER.