GFH3 Run #1,705; 3 July 2013

Ah, summer in Great Falls:  the heat, the humidity, the threats of thunderstorms, the verdant, vital, vigorously flourishing poison ivy festooning ancient oaks, stilt grass and parking lots.  The thirty-or-so hashers thrashing about under overcast skies, fruitlessly searching for the turkey/eagle split.  Okay, that's an exaggeration.  There were only about 35 hashers total, and of those let's say 20 runners, and of those perhaps three or four actually found that t/e split.  So great work setting those marks, Rrocks Starr, Phoenix Rising, Blow in the Hole and Dances with Bulls!  Great work!

Hashers paying close attention to explanation of the t/e split.

That's right, Blow in the Hole has now co-hared three of the last five hashes, and may be helping out with next week's course.  Perhaps someone ought to speak with her therapist about adjusting the meds.  While you're at it, talk to Brogue Bait and Seth's counselors.  When they reached the path back to R.S.'s, having lost trail and accidentally turkey-ed pretty seriously, they conferred briefly and decided a couple more laps around the park would be the right way to spend the next thirty minutes.  Ah, youth.

By all accounts, it was a great course if you could find it through the oozing mud, and those who persevered were only out for about 90 minutes, and it makes a nice change of pace to have the usual FRBs DFL instead.  The walkers and shortcutters, having enjoyed watching kayakers working way too hard to go nowhere on the falls, made serious inroads into a luxurious sandwich spread with side salads and assured each other of the strength, competence and survival instincts of the missing eagles.  Since the Starr family does not skimp, the return of Mike I., Easy Strider (the Mufti:  "It looked like he might be straining just a bit."), Suck Squeeze Bang, Bionic Babe, Paula and, finally, Chip Off the Old Dick, individually and severally soaked to the skin in their own sweat, could not ruffle Christina:  she just laid out more cold cuts and cheeses, and the late-finishers dug into a well-earned dinner.

Mike smiling now that he's been back for ten minutes or so; COtOD not ready to smile quite yet.

Finally, the Mufti could call the roll.  Paint in the Ass hit 398, Spurt 598, Lilla number one (99 to the cup!), and both Mr. Herman and Mr. Hermansson reached #5.  Thanks for visiting!  Were there really no pup dogs at this hash?  Check out the photographic evidence here, and thanks to Lilla for help with camera-wielding.  There are pix as well of four of R.S.'s 37 or so carefully plastic-wrapped signs providing parking instructions.  As if buying beer and setting out chairs and spending five hours setting a trail no one can follow weren't enough work...