3rd Annual Western New York Letterbox Gathering

Just Playin’ Around WNY 2005 (last updated August 14, 2005)

General Info: We are officially in the Finger Lakes region instead of Buffalo/Niagara for the Just Playin’ Around WNY 2005 gathering. It's on August 27th and will go from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM.  We’ll be at Durand-Eastman Park along Lake Ontario in Rochester, NY (Monroe County). The park is off Lake Shore Boulevard and Kings Highway in Rochester, but we’ll be at the Maple Shelter off Log Cabin Road. The above link is the main park site, but click here for a park and trail map and here for westbound directions from Syracuse or eastbound directions from Buffalo to the park itself. The major driving is on the New York Thruway (I-90), and exits are only one number away depending on the direction you come in (#45 from points east and #46 from points west)

Event Schedule: We’re trying to maximize your boxing time, so the schedule is simple:

11:00am—Event begins. Come stamp into the event book, get the event stamps, exchange with other boxers and get some food. You can do this at ANY time between 11:00 and 4:30, but the food DOES run out and people will be in and out all day! IF YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN TO A GATHERING, BE SURE TO COME AT THIS TIME SO WE CAN HAVE TIME TO MEET YOU AND HELP YOU GET ORIENTED!

11:00-4:30pm: Boxing all over the park & Rochester. You can also use this time to exchange at the pavilion or just talk to other folks in the area

4:30pm—Group photo. Be sure to come back in time to get everyone in the shot so we’ve got something to share on the boards!

4:45pm—Raffle & Award time! Pay a $1 per ticket and get a shot at winning some great boxing supplies or win an stamping award for the day!

5:00pm—Event ends. Join up with the local folks for dinner at one of the nearby restaurants (TBA) or head home/to your hotel to relax. Come back Sunday to get what boxes you missed!

Food: Like all gatherings, our bounty will be potluck, so bring your favorite dish and let us know what it is (so we don’t have too little or too much of anything!). We'll provide hotdogs and soda if you bring the side dishes!

Accommodations: Unlike Middleport, Rochester is HUGE. This is what Yahoo gave me for hotel search results and a link to the Greater Rochester Vistors Association (although I can’t vouch for how close these are). The nearest suburbs are Greece (big area with a really nice mall) and Irondequoit, so anything near there (or Lake Ontario in general) is fine. Keywords to search for are Seabreeze (which is the little amusement park not far from Durand Eastman) and the CATS Fast Ferry (which is a HUGE ferry for people and cars from Rochester to Toronto).

Boxes: Boxes will be placed all over Durand Eastman Park and Rochester for this event, some of which will be picked up a month afterward and returned to their owners. Clues for the park boxes will be posted on our gathering clues page on Thursday the 24th, so no peeking until then (don't worry, those of us living around here have promised to wait until Saturday to search!). We’ll also have a booklet of the park clues to give out at the pavilion, but only until we run out! Our box theme is all about fun and games, so the boxes we have are as follows:

Just Playin' Around WNY Event Stamp (1 box)

Celtic Quinn's Card Game series (7 boxes)

Celtic Quinn's Board Game series (6 boxes)

Craftymouse & Dandelion's Set LB (1 box)

Craftymouse & Dandelion's Yahtzee LB (1 box)

DDD's Kayak NH LB (1 box)

Dragonfly’s Ouija LB (1 box)

Erica of Jiggs’  Pin the Tail on the Donkey Series (2  boxes)

Erica of Jiggs’ Hoppity Skip LB (1 box)

Erica of Jiggs’ Jump Rope LB (1 box)

Erica of Jiggs’ Krazy Klock (1 box)

Lockwench's My First Bounce LB (1 box)

Spudhund's Lego series (4 boxes)

Spudhund's Greyhound Racing LB (1 box)

Spudhund's Kiss My Ace LB (1 box)

The Sprite and the Highlander's The Four Seasons Travelling Event Stamp series (4 boxes)

The Sprite and the Highlander's Monopoly series (18 boxes)

The Sprite and the Highlander's Green Ghost LB (1 box)

The Sprite and the Highlander's Connect Four LB (1 box)

The Sprite and the Highlander's D & D LB (1 box)

Trailhoundz’ Puzzled series (4 boxes)

WINK's Golf LB (1 box)

for a grand total of 60 boxes!

As you can see, more box donations are wholly unnecessary at this point (since the park is only so big), but raffle items would be GREATLY appreciated. We only have about 6 items so far, so any boxing supplies or fun items you can send to add to our list would really help make the whole thing worthwhile. Proceeds for this raffle will go toward the cost of the pavilion, the grill food and...well, other raffle items! :-).

Getting Around & Other Boxes: There’s the Thruway boxes on your way into town, but also check Atlas Quest for Rochester boxes. On LBNA, check for boxes in Monroe, Genesee and Orleans County (Niagara and Erie if you have a weekend to spend!  If you DO want to make a weekend out of it, don't forget that the Royalton Ravine boxes from the last gathering are only about an hour from where we'll all be, so check any cities along Route 31 or Route 104 for more boxes within reach (Brockport, Albion, Holley, Elba & Medina come to mind). Mapworks sells an EXCELLENT map of the Finger Lakes area with all the little side streets and rabbit runs, so you might want to invest the 4 or 5 bucks on one. The only catch is the DETAILED map of Rochester & Monroe County is a separate map, so a little extra, but still inexpensive for the detail. We own a Western NY Region map from them and have never been disappointed.

 Questions?: Let us know (the Sprite & the Highlander) if WE can be of more help. This is the second WNY gathering we’ve planned (third for the area) and we want it to be as much fun as the November 2004 one was (but WARMER!). If you know of anyone else that's interested, please feel free to pass this info along to them and have them sign up on Atlas Quest! We have over 50 people coming, some of which are from as far as CT, MA and Canada...you could be one of them! This park is almost exactly the same drive time for Syracuse folks and Buffalo folks (about 1 ½ hours either way). Hope to see you there!

The (going insane with excitement…again!) Sprite & the (tying her down with reality, as usual!) Highlander

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E-mail us at dasprite222@yahoo.com so we can keep you informed of updates to this page and the event.

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