1239-1240 Just a couple of leftover stamps from the 23rd Southern RI Annual Fall Gathering - walk
Richmond, RI
Nov 4, 2024

Ah, it was a gorgeous relaxing fall day in RI, just the kind we remember loving from our earliest letterboxing adventures from way back in 1999! Even our first few gatherings back then were such wonderful little laid back events (even for shy neurodivergent folks like us!;-) - just a chance to find out who else was joining this fun new hobby of ours, to share some snacks and stories - and NO STAMPS! Letterboxing itself was something to be done independently on one's own time, carefully reading each clue, enjoying each separate hike and then savoring each individually earned stamp - none of this insatiable need to just collect as many stamps as possible in as little time as possible that seems to be making the rounds in the form of "stamp collecting gatherings" in certain parts of the country these days, which we feel greatly diminishes the quality of actual letterboxing experiences as we once knew them, but - hey! - everyone has their own particular ego needs and for some folks, no matter how many stamps they get - it'll never be enough!;-)

Anyway, this little "token gathering" of ours was strictly a throwback to the earlier "non- excessive stamp collecting" times of letterboxing that we used to so enjoy, so we knew that none of the current crowd of "stamp number" people would have any interest in this one anyway and, since no one else seemed to want to host this little RI gathering this year, we thought we could do it once again just to have it coincide with the only free time we had available this fall in between putting in new windows, squeezing in last-minute cruises and other things. In fact, we had so much else going on that we completely forgot about these leftover boxes for several months, and it wasn't until a slushy snowy winter evening just before my mother's funeral that we actually remembered that we still hadn't posted these clues, so all we can do now is try to remember as best we can where we left these old stamps in little black pouches and hope the clues still work!

So, after we parked in the large dirt parking lot on the southeast side of Browning Mill Pond several miles north of route 138 and south of route 165, we took a lovely walk around the pond admiring the beautiful fall colors reflected in the shimmering water. It sort of reminded us of the flickering flames of Waterfire, so, after a short break for a picnic near one of the tables out in the field, we wandered out to the table on the western end of the nearby peninsula, took about 60 steps at 100 degrees, and tucked the pouch containing the stamp for "Waterfire Honoring Veterans" into the top of the eastern part of a two-trunk stump.Then we crossed over the road to the east and picked up the long boardwalk all the way out to the northeast end, passing another corner picnic table and pond, and left a "Happy Apple" in the large stump to the right after taking 35 steps east from the rock in front of the Upper Roaring Brook sign. Hope you get to enjoy many walks in the woods of southern RI and elsewhere!

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