The Hall of Mirrors

Once, as a little boy I got trapped in a hall of mirrors. It was a horrifying experience. Twists and turns... Left and Right... Each new passage-way looking just like the last! I must admit, I cried like a baby.

Okay, okay you can stop laughing at me now! How dare you make fun of a little boy's pain?!? As you can see it still haunts me to this day.

We had a similar experience on the letterbox trail this past weekend . Our travels took us to Readfield in search of a box on The Torsey Pond Nature Preserve. A beautiful trail we must say. Leaving home in the middle of a rainstorm we dashed from our car to the trail, thankful to find a heavy cover of foliage to shelter us from the deluge. As we walked we could hear the tell-tale pitapat of raindrops. The gentle pelting of precipitation on broad deciduous leaves, as well as wide coniferous boughs marked our cadence along the path. Yes, it was raining but we were relatively dry.

A rumble of thunder sounded like a tympani over the breast of the pond. It continued for several moments. We, Thompson Twins looked warily to one another, wondering if we'd dodge forth coming bolts of lightning or be toasted 'neath the pines?!? Still we pressed on!

The letterbox clue called us to find a, "paper birch leaning on a rock". We peeled our eyes for the appearance of said tree.

The trail sloped gently down to the banks of Torsey Pond and provided a beautiful view of a reedy inlet of the pond. A loon's eerie cry echoed 'cross the surface of the gray, blue steel pond surface.

Back to that birch tree. We had to wonder if the letterbox placer was chuckling with mirth this very moment, rubbing hands together in mock merriment... This trail was littered... no... loaded... no... choked with birch trees. And I'll be a monkey's uncle if they weren't all leaning on rocks! And if it weren't for the ever increasing precipitation and ever approaching electrical storm we very well may have spent all night searching each every one of those ten thousand birches!

In a horrific moment I was back in the hall of mirrors. Trees of white all around us. Like bumping from one mirror to the next, no sooner would we peer around the base of one tree only to see another just off in the distance, just like the one before! It was madness! A fun madness nonetheless.

They say that insanity is repeating the same behavior over and over again without knowing it. That's what letterboxing is like sometimes. Oh the joy of that insanity!

We've learned that no letterboxing search is a waste of time, box found or not.

The sound of the rain. The scent of damp, mossy logs. The ever increasing view or rock-resting birches. These experiences we shall never forget.

As the loon laughed in the background, we packed it in and chuckled not unlike our waterfowl kinsman. Up the trail we trod. Trying to erase the hall of mirrors from our minds... But hoping we never really would forget The Torsey Nature Preserve Trail!