Letterboxing~Santa Fe, NM

(All photos were taken by me and my friend, Val using her camera. Thanks Val for giving me these photos. You're the best!)
Two weekends ago, Val and I drove up to Santa Fe to spend the day hunting for letterboxes. There are a bunch of wonderfully active letterboxers in Santa Fe, hiding many more letterboxes than we could possibly find in a day....but we were going to try to find as many as we possibly could!

We started off at the Santa Fe Animal Shelter, which is a beautiful place surrounded by gorgeous vistas, with a state-of-the-art facility and a generous amount of large separate paddocks for exercising family dogs.
We quickly located "Paws & Purrs Kitten", Paw & Purrs Puppy" along with the Paws & Purrs 'bonus' box. What fun, and adorable carvings, too. When we went to rehide the boxes, I almost stumbled upon this lovely critter.Val and I thought the trail he left behind was cool.

Our next box was located in a Santa Fe cemetery and gave us our first challenge. There was a math challenge, compass/directional challenge, and many clever tricks included within the clever clues. We did finally located the "La Paloma" box and enjoyed the lovely carving inside while giggling at our quirky sense of humor.
Val saw this 'pillow' and we both enjoyed the on-going theme of "Rest In Peace"This is the Woodman's grave. I have suspicions that a curse may have been placed on me by the Woodman. This was the last location I stood to take a photo with my beloeved camera...and the last photo I ever took before my camera went missing........

Our next location to search for a letterbox was near the Capital Building. Unfortunately, the letterbox, "Eternal Flame", was missing....right along with my camera (-sob-).
In this post, one thing you will notice is the abundance of art. Santa Fe is an artist mecca. There is art everywhere you look. Val took this terrific photo of this statue in front of the Capital Building.

Our next stop was right down the road at the river park near the plaza. "Fortitudo Dei" was a great box with some clever clues, along with some unique art to enjoy.




After we stamped in and enjoyed the artwork, we drove a little ways down the street to look for "Giant Rebel of Eden", located in a lovely place of reflection and beauty. The carving and box were awesome and we took a few minutes to enjoy the wonderful location.


We drove on to our next letterboxing location: Canyon Rd. The famous Santa Fe avenue well known for it's amazing art galleries and shops. This is a road you want to just park and stroll down, admiring all of the art set up outside of each art gallery. This picture was taken at the intersection of Delgado and Canyon. Do you see that cute goat? Aww! It is a Peter Woytuk sculpture, of which you can read more about later on in this post.
Beautiful art abounds.

Horse art is everywhere. You probably know that Val and I were smiling huge.



Isn't this amazing?!


Our first letterbox to find was in a fun and 'sneaky' location. We located "Bear in Mind" quickly, enjoyed the cute hand-carved stamp, and re-hid the little box stealthily.

We moved on to find our next box "Artful Southwest: Santa Fe Style". The clues for this box told us to find the 'Gypsy Baby', but it had moved to a different location. So when we figured out about where the place was originally located, we asked a shop owner a few questions, and voila! We found the box. It was fun exploring the charming little alleyway where the box was hidden. This was not the actual alleyway. But isn't it pretty?



I had a few giggles from some 'naughty art' we stumbled upon, too. Can't you just hear this gal saying, "Stop now. Keep away from there, you beast!" lol

We admired these strikingly beautiful 'whirligigs' along the way, but were also a bit frustrated knowing there was a letterbox hidden at this location, except the clues eluded us. Something fun for our next trip up to Santa Fe, eh?

Our next stop was a little ways off Canyon Rd to find "Are your Dogs Barking". We enjoyed the hunt for this box, but the stamp theme was related more towards tired feet, and not these gorgeous statues, located on Canyon Rd.
Can you say, "Awww"?

The charming bench in front of this beautiful Santa Fe residence is where we stamped into our log books.

Our next box to find was called "Honor, Loyalty & Peace". It was originally located near a statue of an origami dove or swan, but the artwork was sold a while ago. Something that happens quite a bit in Santa Fe. The hand carved stamp was lovely and I'm including some more terrific art from Canyon Rd here.

For our next letterbox hunt, we drove up above the city of Santa Fe to look for a box placed by one of my favorite letterboxers, Kat, who resides in Utah. The box, called 'Lizard Goes South', gave us a few minutes of confusion because we assumed the location instead of checking our clues more closely. But we located the box easily, stamped into our log books with the cute hand-carved image, and admired the beautiful views of Santa Fe from above.

Afterwards, Val and I drove back down into Santa Fe once again to find another box called "The Crow Knows". We ended up finding this one by accident while stopping off to use a 'port-a-pot early voting location' (see previous post) and while waiting for Val to emerge from the 'booth', I happened to look down the little alleyway nearby and the proverbial light bulb lit up in my head, and I smiled huge.
The hand carved stamps were wonderful and we happily stamped the images into our logbooks.

When we left that location we decided to have a little fun, and stopped off to play on some exciting larger-than-life sculptures on Paseo de Peralta Rd.
You can see many of these fun sculptures in this post and my previous 'voting' post below. They are all by the famous artist, Peter Woytuk. He is known worldwide for his highly original and whimsical sculptures of animals, each displaying its own unique spirit. Outdoors is his preferred exhibition venue.

He says, “Displaying pieces outside makes you compete with all else outside—trees, buildings, mountains,” “What once looked big inside is suddenly dwarfed in an exterior environment.”

“Cravens”—Woytuk’s zoological contraction he sometimes uses to describe look-alike crows and ravens—are ubiquitous fixtures in Woytuk collections. He developed a fascination for their lively behavior—crows and ravens spend 90 percent
of their time at play.
The common chicken hen also stirs Woytuk’s whimsy: His hen representations are comedic, plump, ovoid shapes resembling Easter eggs with no attempt at realism.

Photographer-turned sculptor Woytuk is something of a sensation in the art world. Woytuk’s works give new meaning to the word variety. They range from bronze sculptures of animals weighing four-and-a-half tons to an inch-and-a-half bronze of a raven weighing about as much as a large feather.

Well the sun was dropping low in the sky and we were already late in meeting up with our Santa Fe Letterboxing friends at Starbucks for coffee, visiting and more stamping and exchanges. It was just wonderful seeing old friends again. They all were so welcoming to Val (Fantastyk Voyager) and seemed very excited to have another New Mexico letterboxer to call 'friend'. While there, our pal, Rubber Peace (her trail name) invited us to 'find' her new box, "The Falling Leaves", and we were thrilled to find two creatively made "First Finder" certificates inside for both Val and I. The stamp was beautifully carved, too. What a fun surprise! (From left to right: Rubber Peace, Lions Mane, me-Twinville Trekker, Astro D)
You can read more about our fun Santa Fe Letterboxing Meet-and-Greet on Lions Game Blog
I really like this picture of all of us.(from left to right: me-Twinville Trekker, Val-Fantastyk Voyager, Astro D, and Rubber Peace) Oooh! And I noticed that I'm holding my favorite bag, the 'Chick Bag" hand-made by my blog friend Michelle from SugarCreek Stuff. Her stuff is amazing. She's a work at home Mom and her handmade items are beautifully made with much quality and creativity. Check her out for your holiday gift giving needs.

Well, it was getting late, and the sky was a beautiful shade of pink, but we still hadn't found the last and most coveted letterbox on our 'must-find' list, "The Art of Ebru". But it was in our favor, that the person whom the box was created by just so happened to be there with us, and he very generously offered to not just direct us where to find his box, but even offered to drive us there! What a treat!! (Thanks Lions Mane!).

On the way up into the Canyon above Santa Fe, we were treated with gorgeous skies and a wonderful view to end our letterboxing day in beautiful Santa Fe.

Note: We found 14 Letterboxes while in Santa Fe! That's a personal record. Woot! Woot!)