Rockford / Beloit

Any excuse to get out of the house is good for me!! I think that is one reason that letterboxing has been such a good thing for our family. Matt loves the art of the hobby and the kids & I love the getting out and exploring (yeah...matt does too!). By the weekend, I am ready to point to the map and say, "let's go here...are their letterboxes to find?"

There is a new boxer by the name of SweetEllGee in the Rockford/Beloit area and she has been busy planting!! We decided that there were enough new boxes to make the trip worthwhile so we headed north last Sunday.

Instead of taking Interstates 88 & 39 to Rockford (who wants to pay tolls, when there is a beautiful, scenic drive along the Rock River!!), we headed north at Dixon. We stopped at the Castle Rock State Park Scenic Overlook. The kids did wonderful climbing all the steps - Matt had to race to keep up with them!

All 4 kids enjoying God's Beauty!

Next stop "80s Arcade" series of letterboxes. When we approached the first box we noticed someone else who we thought might be boxers...when we found the box, matt immediately looked in the logbook and saw that they were indeed boxers and ran ahead to introduce himself. He was thrilled to meet Tat2Bob & Kimberly and we hung out with them for the remaining boxes....only to meet up with them again at Summer Treats...they are a very nice couple and we enjoyed our time with them. We don't often box with fellow boxers, so it is a treat when we do! We ended our time with them at "ARRGH" (see pictures of Riverside Park, Beloit).

We ended up seeing lots of playgrounds & parks this trip - I think we got 12 slides for our slides adventure! Notice on the 2nd picture down...yes, those are our 4 kids not playing on the playground, but looking longingly at the swimming pool!!

Our favorite park by far though was Riverside Park in Beloit....the pictures show why!!

We looked & found the 3 boxes at the Welcome to IL & Welcome to WI rest stops. Our favorite was the Wisconsin stop - the kids loved playing by the Welcome sign and waving to all of the cars.

One of our last stops for the day was at the Old Arch Bridge (1882). We found 2 boxes here. The bridge is a beautiful one and it is so nice to see that the history of it is being preserved.

We ended our day with 12 slides, 12 boxes, 2 exchanges and 6 very tired people! We got home at 11:30 that night!! It was a long day.