1158. Ornaments on the Outer Bell (3) - 1-2mile
Charlestown, RI
Placed 12/26/2020

Boxing Day was so sad for us in the pandemic year of 2020 because, on that day after Christmas, we didn't have any new or even old leftover boxes that we knew of to go looking for within a very large distance from our home in southern RI.* Yes, 2020 was quite a slow letterboxing year for us, the slowest ever since we first started keeping track way back twenty years ago when there weren't even that many boxes in the whole country! Considering the few places that we Rhode Islanders were allowed to visit for much of the year, and, compared with the 4000 to 5000 finds a year that we had been able to get in many of our more recent "heyday traveling years"(not counting stamps related to gatherings, of course, which we haven't been much attending for quite some time and which we don't really consider to be "traditional" letterboxing anyway! ;-), in 2020 there was so relatively little actual letterboxing left for us to do in the places we could still go to that we could barely scrape together as many finds as we had plants!

So, what could we do for Boxing Day 2020? Well, if there was nothing for us to find, we could always plant a few more boxes, right? And that is such an essential part of being a letterboxer anyway, to always try to stay within that suggested minimum of one plant for every 100 finds, so off we went on a little local "hop, skip and jump"to transplant a couple more of our old recycled "favorite ornament"stamps, plus a new "re-carve"for one of them that we couldn't find in the area of Burlingame where the original trail has now been nearly obliterated due to blowdowns and such. The basic colors that you will need to stamp these ornaments are brown and green, with light blue for background and possibly yellow for hanger highlights as well, so don't forget to bring your colored ink pens!

So, where did we choose to go to plant these stamps this time? Well, on one of the only other loops nearby in our town that we could think of that we hadn't already planted anything on yet! Actually, we had planted a couple of "semi-mystery"boxes on the eastern bell of this little dumbbell-shaped trail a while back, so now we just wanted to get a few boxes out over onto the western bell. To find the starting point, if you haven't already guessed, just go about half a mile north from route 1 on the road related to a king and soon reach the small parking lot for the end moraine on the left.

Now take the blue-blazed trail left of the kiosk around the eastern side of the dumbbell until you get to the first junction for the dumbbell bar marked by several blue blazes on a tree. Take this connector bar over to its other junction and then go left on the western dumbbell, also still marked with blue blazes. Shortly encounter two adjacent 10-12 foot tall snags on the left side of the trail, with a log on the ground in front and between them. We left the "Peanut" in a yellow pill container under the end of that log furthest from the trail.

Continue on the trail, taking note of the view of the distant ocean and of route 1, which snakes along the flatland at the base of the moraine. Follow the trail until it bends to the right away from the noise of route 1. As you approach s noticeable descent, there will be a blue blazed tree on the left with a brilliant green mossy boulder behind it. Between the tree and the boulder is where we left the re-carved "Pickle" under sticks and bark. (The original got so lost amidst the tangles of blowdowns in that part of Burlingame that there was no way we could ever find it!;-)

Continue following the trail as it bends to the north, goes gently uphill awhile and passes a small boulder crowding the right side of the trail. There is a tree on the left about 12 steps further that has a little low "water bowl" on its north side, and in the leaves below that bowl under a small triangular quartz rock is where we left the "Pine Cone", within view of a few pine trees ahead and off to the left. Now finish off the rest of this dumbbell by walking through the mountain laurels back to the western junction, cross back over the bar to the eastern junction with the multi-blazed tree, and then take either way around the eastern dumbbell to get back to your car.

*The very next day after we planted these boxes for Boxing Day 2020, we were "pleased as punch"to find 5 new boxes planted right in our own neighborhood, then a few more on the eastern dumbbell of this very same trail! These boxes and others that have been coming out in recent months have really helped get us through these sad pandemic days, so thanks again to all who have planted to help keep letterboxing going in our area!

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