Sign Up  /  Login

Cycle of Life Series LbNA #50328

Owner:Adoptable
Plant date:Sep 6, 2009
Location: Homer Lake Forest Preserve
City:Homer
County:Champaign
State:Illinois
Boxes:4
Planted by:Interpretus maximus
Found by: I dig toasters (4)
Last found:Nov 26, 2016
Status:FFFFFOFFOFFFFFF
Last edited:Dec 14, 2015
This letterbox series is located at Homer Lake Forest Preserve. A map and directions to the preserve can be found online at http://ccfpd.org/About/Map_Directions.html. Find the parking lot at the Flicker Woods Trailhead to begin your search.

Note: A tree identification guide and a compass may be helpful in finding these letterboxes.

1) Eggs: Begin hiking the Flicker Woods Trail from the trailhead. You will start out heading east. Turn right at the T, and begin to look for a pair of cedar trees on the right side of the trail. “Eggs” hides within the first tree.

2) Caterpillar: Turn back the way you came, and continue straight on the main trail as you pass the intersection. You will arrive at another T-intersection with a Leopold bench. Designed by the famous naturalist Aldo Leopold, these benches were made to sit two ways, forwards and backwards. If you thread your legs through the bench, the back rest becomes an elbow rest. The purpose of this design is so you can sit and rest your arms as you look through binoculars. Try sitting in the Leopold bench this way, and then spy a broken-off, decaying stump about thirty feet in front of you. “Caterpillar” resides within this stump.

3) Chrysalis: Continue down the trail to the right; you will be heading south. Peer down at the Salt Fork River below you. Loop by the fireplace and foundation, and keep the red barn on your right. Across from the red barn, on the right side of the trail, is a tree that used to be a 2 from 1. Where one half broke off, about 4 feet above the ground, is where “Chrysalis” hides.

4) Monarch Butterfly: Continue to follow the trail north. Pass at least eight shagbark hickory trees with shaggy bark. Find a spindly-looking 3 from 1, which was formerly a 4 from 1. You might also notice that some of its bark has been shredded by deer antlers. Inside the stump of the fourth, under lots of sticks and debris, is where you will find “Monarch Butterfly.”

Continue north down the trail to the gate. To get back to the trailhead, turn left on the trail and loop back around to the Leopold bench.