1258. Three Southern RI Sites that were used for Multiple Gatherings in the Past! (7) - stroll - W&P

1) Burlingame Picnic Area located on Sanctuary Road off of Prosser Trail The Hollow Tree" root beer and grapes

This picnic area at Watchaug Pond with its associated CCC built pavilion was the site of our first RI gathering on October 6, 2001 as well as another one later on. Not much is left from those times other than memories of some of the earliest "human travelers" (now called "personal travelers") that were used as a means to figure out who people were in the hobby back then, which was pretty much all the earliest gatherings were really about: "Meet/Greet/Eat"! I actually got to find out that one of the earliest planters in both CT and RI was a man called Bob who worked at Eastern Mountain Sports in Waterford, CT and who had once years earlier helped me fix my backpacking stove that had gotten broken by a National Geographic Team using it to melt snow when they camped with me after getting caught in a blizzard climbing a remote 14,000' peak in Colorado along the Continental Divide - yep, that's me in the background of the photo they published of us climbing San Juan Peak in the snow in their "Pathways to Discovery" book!

Anyway, to get back to that first gathering in RI, besides those "human traveler" stamps, the only other stamps available that day at Burlingame were in a couple of boxes planted by early CT letterboxers Jay Drew and Melissa & Dan coming over from CT and basically planting them to thank their RI hosts for holding the event, hence calling them "event" or "event thank you boxes", not that those CT folks were the ones hosting this event, as seems to be erroneously thought by some later letterboxers who were not at that first RI gathering or even in the hobby at all back then! The actual stamp for what would nowadays be called the "event stamp'" was "Lil" Rhodster" , carved by Carolyn Stearns of CT and later given to us to be used as a "House Box", and also just briefly to be available at the 25th annual gathering "Meet/Greet/Eat" on Oct. 19, 2025 at DCCCP in Westerly, RI!

There is one other stamp that came out of that first RI gathering, though, and that is the one we called "The Hollow Tree", or more appropriately perhaps "Tree with Rot Hole at Base". We were just sitting out there that day eating our clam chowder when I spotted a tree matching that description in the distance, so I asked my former sister-in-law, Trish, to whom we had first introduced letterboxing around our backyard on Easter Sunday in 2000, if she would carve a stamp of it for me and she did, so we put it briefly out there in that tree, then planted it elsewhere afterwards for a while. However, emptying old letterboxing stuff recently, we noticed we still had it, so decided to plant it again near its original spot for "25 years later", and that old "hollow tree" was still there, too, so if anyone wants a tiny taste of what letterboxing was like back then, just go west from the ramp at the old pavilion and follow the pond northerly until you see the "hollow tree" just past the number 31 grill. About three feet up on the back right side of the stump-like appendage on the front of the tree is where we temporarily tucked this old stamp in a tiny black baggie under a couple of small pieces of matching wood!

Now for another more literal taste of old-timey letterboxing, here's another story from an even earlier time! Back then in the summer of 2001, boxes and boxers were so few and far between that it sometimes took quite a while for anyone to get out to them, especially if they were on an 8-mile loop hike! Such was the case with Pete's "Lil' Rhody Runaround" on the Vin Gormley Trail in Burlingame, so Pete used to drive by the end of that 4-box plus bonus series (quite a novelty at that time when almost all plants except for a couple of series by Jay Drew were singles!) almost every day on his way home from work, just hoping to catch someone out there doing it! Finally, one very hot summer day, Pete burst through the door, exclaiming, "Hurry up, Wanda, it's Jay Drew doing my Runaround series - I recognized his red car! Grab something cold to drink and maybe we can catch him at the end!" So, I grabbed some root beer and grapes that we had cooling in the fridge and off we dashed, and sure enough, we managed to catch Jay just as he was finishing up, so he really appreciated the cold drinks and fruit on such a long hot sweaty afternoon and root beer and grapes became something we brought as a celebratory memory to just about every gathering we went to for the next whole bunch of years!

Anyway, if anyone else would like a sample of the stamps for this "memory story", which were actually part of our "More Hungry Rocks" series in Arcadia for many years, they can be found temporarily for the 25th gathering not at the actual place we met up with Jay on the trail, but quite close by! Just go to that same large red pavilion where we had the first gathering and look on the both the north and south sides of it. On the south side will be a black pouch with a stamp of a frosty root beer float tucked behind rocks under the rotting portion of the nearest log of the building sticking out near the spaces marked for handicap parking, and on the similar spot on the north side of the building will be some grapes in a black film container resting on a little pine needle nest between a few stones! Just make sure to use a brown marker for the root beer and a purple marker for the grapes or you will completely lose the effect!

2) Kettle Pond located on north side of route 1 on Bend Road. - old boney fish

Now onward to the next site we used several times for gatherings in RI, with permission, of course, since it is a National Wildlife Refuge, i.e. Kettle Pond NWR! Sadly, funding problems have resulted in closures of the visitors center and most of the museum/ activity areas, where we had once planted quite a few indoor stamps. We only found one leftover stamp that we could use on short order to represent fond memories from gatherings held here, so this funky little stamp glued on back of a rock will have to suffice for now. Apparently during one of our previous gatherings a heron had swooped in and grabbed a fish from out of Lenny's soup kettle! We recently noticed that that heron has returned and seems to have dropped the remains of that old boney fish just below the fish that it still holds in its mouth, behind and between two rocks that are just below its long right side talons! Do you think you can you find it? .

3) Ninigret Park off Old Post Road - Pond area - Cats PJs

...and now finally for the last gathering site we have time to mention today, with great memories of pumpkin parties and Halloween boxes all around ...and now trolls, too! So, this is where we decided to leave three "Halloween Stamps from Montana" (3)

These stamps were given to us to be used for our "near Halloween gathering" by Cats PJs when we were lucky enough to have a chance to visit her house in Montana after her remarkable historic event near Little Bighorn National Battlefield. We're calling them "aquastamps" just because they are near the water and have an aqua stamp pad: hence, Aqua Skull, Aqua Bat and Aqua Web.

To find them, enter the park and curve left at the tennis courts, then see the Pond Area ahead across the parking lots. Immediately right of the restroom building is the old pavilion where we had several of our our fall gatherings over the years. From the right side of the pavilion, just take about 30 steps diagonally southeast to spot rocky access to water. Carefully descend to waters edge - perhaps noticing a huge brown figure reflected in the waters across the way - then turn your back to the water and face the multi-maple tree with the large brown boulder at your feet. Under a lighter-colored flat rock on the north side of that brown boulder is where we left a small aqua-colored box with aqua-colored ink for the sugar skull stamp. The 2 other stamps are under similar light colored flat stones on the south side of that same brown boulder. They are just staying close to each other for a short time to allow them all to use the same aqua-tinted ink pad before they get moved someplace further away!

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