Well, RIBNAG comes from how my group of friends used to pass the time in my late-HS to college years. RI doesn't really have a whole lot for the non-sedentary crowd to do. Thus, you have many under-21s sitting around bored; even over 21, if you don't like clubbing or the more traditional bars, still not much to do.
So, we used to go out at night and crawl around the many abandoned military installations in that state (really quite a good number of them, ranging from civil-war era to WWII). We did this at night because the state discouraged such activity (I won't say we outright broke the law (except perhaps trespassing, but no signs saying to stay out), and we never damaged property, but we did occasionally need to loosen bolts holding plywood over tunnel entrances "for our protection"). Quite a lot of fun, incredibly dangerous and probably a touch stupid, but it gave us something to do.
A few of us also enjoyed hiking, and as densely suburrban as you may consider Southern New England, RI and Western CT have quite a lot of good hiking trails. On one of these (well, okay, quite a bit away from one, walking along a granite ridge and just generally wandering around in the woods), Laura came across our first letterbox. From there, at least Laura and I got hooked. A few other RIBNAG'ers letterbox as well, but I think only we cache.
So... My/our handle comes from the anagram for
Rhode
Island
Bored
Noctural
Adventurer
Guild. I had considered changing it to NEBNAG when I moved to Maine, but then Chris moved to Florida so even "
New
England" no longer worked - Thus I kept it "RIBNAG" for lack of a better name.
Sadly, the last time I visited one of my early-20s haunts, I discovered the state had sold it (and several similar sites) for a pittance to a company that makes such historical sites into nauseatingly safe "reconstructions" and then charges for tours. And, of the RIBNAG'ers still living in RI, none still do anything all that interesting anymore (though a couple still hike, I don't think any have letterboxed in years).
You just can't go home again.