They hide behind trees

My neighbor, Lisa, at LaughingOrcaRanch invited me to go letterboxing with her and her son, Jackson. Letterboxing is an intriguing pastime combining navigational skills and rubber stamp artistry in a charming "treasure hunt" style outdoor quest. A wide variety of adventures can be found to suit all ages and experience levels. (from letterboxing.org)

We were going to Cerrillos, an old mining town. It's not far from home, about an hour's drive, but it is a beautiful road winding through the foothills of the backside of the Sandia mountains. We drove through Golden and Madrid, on the way. We arrived in Cerillos shortly and looked around. (You will have to excuse all the poor photos.)

The letterbox was not in town, however, so we drove on to the historical park (I never even knew there was one!) The historical park is a group of foot trails winding through the hills with numerous old mines to view. There are information signs near each mine. Regretably, we could not go down into the mines as they are considered unsafe.

This mineshaft was VERY deep. We couldn't see the bottom and it probably had passageways branching out underground. The bridge was very cool because you could walk over the mine opening, not for the fainthearted.
Alas, we couldn't find the first letterbox we had come for. We looked all over the hill. It was supposed to be under this tree in a crevice. Do you know how many rocky crevices there were??
Lisa and Jackson resting from the search.
I really liked this lone yellow tree. Isn't it a pretty view?We finally gave up and went looking for the other letterbox. It was a couple of miles down the trails.We went past a mineral spring and some more mines.
Success! We found this one easily! For our reward, we got to stamp our books with their handmade stamp. In return, we made an entry in their journal with our own stamps.

On the way back we stopped and wandered through Madrid. There are lots of shops and art galleries to browse through and artistic sculptures everywhere. I liked this horse and coach.

I also liked this "natural" cactus garden
For some reason I love old buildings




Jackson showed us what a swinger he is.
He can be such a handful, sometimes.

Everywhere in New Mexico, there are beautiful little churches. Here is San Christobal in Golden.


And here is a photo of Lisa and I, neighbors, and horsebackriding, blogging, and now, letterboxing buddies. :)

They hide behind trees - artist: David Bowie, song: Diamond Dogs, album: Diamond Dogs