1204. RI Walks Challenge - M ill Pond Preserve
Charlestown, RI
3/17/22

One of the cutest projects we have seen that started out during the COVID pandemic to get people outdoors a bit more exploring their local woodlands has been the RI Walks Challenge to find a metal carving of a "plant creature" attached to a tree in each of 30 different RI preserves! RIclimber was the one who alerted us to this project in the first place by planting nearby letterboxes in four of the preserves over on his "eastern side" of the state. So, as if just going for a walk to see the rest of the "plant creatures" themselves on each of their lovely preserves wasn't enough, naturally we started thinking how cool it would be if all 30 of them could get little rubber stamp plant carvings to go along with those larger metal ones!

So, we picked the four preserves with "plant creatures" closest to us in our "southwestern corner" of the state, grabbed a carving tool and a few blank "travelin' lights" (small stones with pink carving rubber glued on back that we used to have ready for pre-pandemic trips abroad), hiked the trails to find the metal carvings and then on-the-spot carved a tiny "rubber plant replica" to leave nearby! With our carvings, finding the metal carvings would be the main focus of any of these short excursions, but we're hoping that the project might catch the fancy of other letterboxers, so that eventually all the preserves will be covered with at least one "rubber plant critter"! (and if some were to get more than one "variation on a theme", that would be pretty cool, too, to get to see people's various "artistic interpretations" of the different plant creatures!:-)

Anyway, to find this particular whimsical plant creature (who looked to us like a little brown doughboy with a puffy chef's hat, reaching out with arms outstretched to give us a hug!), simply drive a scant half mile north from Simple Pleasures at the junction of routes 1 and 2, turn right down the long dirt driveway, and take the red trail past the bridge at the old fish hatchery to where you see him hanging around by a babbling brook waiting to give you a hug! Then look on the other (east) side of the same tree for our "travelin' light" version discreetly hidden under a rock. Can you guess what it is really meant to be?

And now back to thinking how if everyone who letterboxes in RI picks a preserve or two at which to do a quick-carve of a "leaf critter", we could quickly cover this whole RI plant project! Hope that happens!

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