343) I called this box the night before to remind it to get all cleaned up for its big photo shoot. But when I got there, I found that it done a rather lackluster job, and still had a prominent splash of graffiti on its head. He tried to get to get me to shoot from another angle, but I insisted on having the downtown skyline in the background. Turns out we’re both equally stubborn. I decided to have a sit and wait him out, but he held firm. It was like this for hours.

338) You’ll notice I’m very distracted in this shot. First of all, I’m at Bigelow Ave N. I had no idea such a street existed! Bigelow! It is an absolutely lovely street with an awesome name and it has been hiding from me for over 30 years. I’m also distracted by that cool house in the background. This angle doesn’t really do it justice, so take my word for it that it’s really cool. The mailbox is nice, too.

333) There have certainly been a lot of mailboxes on Queen Anne and this isn’t even the last of them… I still have two more to visit! I wonder if it’s because the terrain is so hilly that they don’t want citizens to have to walk very far to reach a box? Whatever the true reason is, I apparently made quite the faux pas when I asked this box why there are so many of them on the hill. He answered with a very befuddled “What? There are others like me?” at which point I stared off into the distance and walked away.

326) Queen Anne Five-Pack (5/5) – We continue our exciting QA journey visiting FIVE untapped mailboxes! Here we are, at the last box on this mini-series. I’m crouched down because I had to park very illegally, and I wanted to be as stealth as possible. Since most mailboxes are dutiful civil servants, I knew there was a risk of this guy reporting me, so I slinked in, got the shot, and slinked out. I don’t think he ever noticed. I hope you enjoyed this absolutely thrilling Queen Anne series! We’ll return to our regular programming tomorrow.

324) Queen Anne Five-Pack (3/5) – We continue our exciting QA journey visiting FIVE untapped mailboxes! We turn onto Queen Anne Ave and begin the climb up the counterbalance. At this first stop, I wanted the photo to convey some sense of the steepness of the hill, and as you can see I failed miserably. If you live in Seattle, you already know this is a steep hill; if you don’t live here, I guess you’ll just have to trust me that it’s steep.

323) Queen Anne Five-Pack (2/5) – We continue our exciting series of a cluster of FIVE untapped mailboxes along a QA route! The next box is just a couple blocks up Roy. This box, in contrast, enjoys his view of the Space Needle and is looking forward to seeing it in its renovated glory. Unfortunately, however, it can only see the Needle when that tree is bare. The rest of the time it can only stare at that parking lot.

322) Queen Anne Five-Pack (1/5) — Exciting news! Yesterday, we were heading out on some errands and i realized there were FIVE untapped mailboxes on our route! Faithful readers know that when I encounter a cluster like that, I like to feature them in a series… so here we go! The first stop in this series finds us just off of Aurora. This box has backed himself up against two poles, but for what reason I don’t know. Did something bad happen across the street and he wants to be sheltered from any further activity? Is he just tired and needs something extra to lean on? Is he actually in the process of walling himself off from all of society and is actively recruiting new poles to join him? Or maybe he’s just upset that the Space Needle is getting a $100 million facelift but he can’t get anyone to clean the graffiti off of him.

317) “Hey, Box. How’s it going?”

“Hey, David. Wow, what a day… the stories I could tell.”

(Pulls up a seal) “Well, I’ve got a few minutes, fill me in!”

(Looking nervous) “Uh… well… about 20 minutes ago I saw a dog.”

“Nothing really happened today, did it?”

“No.”

287) Either this photograph represents a class case of perspective, where objects appear to be false sizes due to their relative distance from the camera… or I have indeed shrunk to a size where I can easily fit inside a mailbox. I’m going to leave it to you to decide.

268) This is a very special mailbox photo for two reasons. First, this box is right across the street from where thousands of patrons stream into the Seattle Center to head to the IMAX theater. The box just loves interacting with all the movie-goers and he gets especially excited when sci-fi films are playing as those bring out all the costumed fans. The second thing that makes this special is that this is the first of nearly 300 mailbox photos that’s blurry. I really don’t know what happened, but I assure you I feel terrible about it.