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The National Park Service LbNA #30773 (ARCHIVED)

Owner:Adoptable
Plant date:May 9, 2007
Location:
City:Townsend
County:Blount
State:Tennessee
Boxes:1
Planted by:Michel LaBranche
Found by: scouttrekkie
Last found:Dec 10, 2010
Status:FFOaFFFFFFaFFFFFaar
Last edited:May 9, 2007
Apologia: This box is dedicated to The National Park Service who we all like to make fun of because they won't let us hide boxes in our parks. However, I think if we thought about this a moment, we can envision irresponsible boxers placing boxes in ridiculous places, and ridiculous box hunters ravaging wildflower beds, or tearing up historically sensitive areas looking for boxes.

More to the point, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park gets 10 MILLION visitors a year. So unless a box is "hidden" in a store in Gatlinburg, it is next to impossible to find a public location with the natural beauty you would expect to find in this entire region where they ain't someone lookin' and wonderin' what yer a doin'!

However, I, Michel LaBranche, have found the 'next to the impossible' location in Townsend, TN, which, as a community, is literally adjacent to the National Park boundary, and I have planted this most excellent letterbox for you to find!

Clues: On Hwy. 321 that traverses Townsend from one end to the other, get in the westbound lane (goes towards Maryville) and go to the west end of town to a public parking lot. Park. Across the highway you might see a field of blue portapotties, and nest to it the Big Valley Motel.

Get on the concrete trail and head west (ok... northwest), and turn and read the sign, "The Townsend Project", about archaeology and area Indians that lived here 5000 years ago. That is well before the time of the ancient pyramids! This entire area along Hwy 321 was the fairly recent site of a massive archaeological dig before the highway was widened. Many graves were unearthed, and the Indians protested..... I mean modern day Indians protested.

Okay, done reading? Continue east for 192 squares and you will come to two, gray, eight inch diameter, posts or branches resting parallel to one another. Under them will be our tribute to the National Park Service.

Thanks go to Cherokee Rose for this great, hand-carved, stamp!