Gathers, Boxers, and Beers, OH MY!

This weekend we were able to attend Stampin' and Campin. What a great experience. Throughout the entire brou-ha-ha I forgot to take any pictures at all until the ride home. Real smart.

Some of the highlights:

1. If you ever get a chance to attend a gather thrown by the Mid-Atlantic crowd, I HIGHLY suggest you do so. Hikers and Hounds managed every detail, down to bringing food, arranging for campsite, and some gather-only boxes. She really deserves credit for all she put into this, we had a GREAT time.
2. A large contigent of dogs filled the campsites, all of them boxers as well. Dude the Wonder Dog, Otto, and Luna all had inky doggy-paws. There was also a large black lab who was patrolling the grounds late at night. I failed to catch his name by that point, however, as I was having trouble being coherent. Which leads me to....
3. Booze! Maryland is kind enough to let you do whatever the hell you want in their woods, as long as you do not have more than two cars per campsite. This is the one thing they will strictly enforce, asking you to kindly move your moonshine distillery so the third car in the site next to you can go to the overflow parking lot. We had lots of beer and one illustrious set of boxers were kind enough to bring Johnny Walker. (not the person)
4. We got the oppotunity to box with a team that has been around since the beginning of boxing in the US. I won't reveal who they are as they choose to fly under the radar, but it was really quite the learning experience getting regaled with stories about the origination of cooties, long time boxers, and happenings before we wandered into this wonderful hobby.
5. The STAMPS! Starry Starry Night by MizSarlet is a masterpiece (quite literally) and the homages, personal travelers, and other assorted stamps were a pleasure to ink up.
6. Cyclonic was kind enough to set up a night boxing course. The trail was tricky at night, but we had a wonderful time stumbling around the woods that we hardly nnoticed.
7. Sunday we went boxing again, and found another set of one of my favorite series. At one of the boxes, there was a family literally SITTING on the log it was hidden in, and we simply had to wait for about 10 minutes before they decided to move on.

I'm sure I'm leaving out a lot, but thank you to everyone who made this experience memorable. Longstockings and I felt truly welcome and had a great time.

On the way home, our car started behaving funny, so we pulled over into Frederick airport, thinking if we couldn't fix the problem we could rent a car. To make a long story short, we fixed the problem quickly and decided to get some dinner at the little restaurant in the airport. When we got into the restaurant and looked out the window, here is what we saw:

That's right, the Goodyear f'n blimp was docked at this teensy little airport for the night. How cool is that? There are actually three of them, One based each in Florida, California, and Ohio. It was neat seeing this thing up close.

After eating we were attracted to a micro-box along the Appalacian Trail:

This box is located about 100 yds away from this sign at the FIRST Washington Monument. The thing in the photos below was built in the 1820's by the residents of Boonesboro, MD to honor our First President.

The Pirate and I in the doorway:

The steps up to the top:

What a view!:

All in all, a great weekend with great people. Thank you all for the history, good times and camaraderie.