Quotes of the hash were part of the brief: (imagine a Sri Lankan accent) “I love to set false trails!” and (switch
to Long Island/Northern California accent) “I think I’m making these false
trails a little too long.” Thanks to
Rick and Mini Schlonga for a looong day of flinging flour about the woods,
following directions from someone who’s not entirely certain what she’s doing
(that’s me!), and somehow getting roped into raking. And thanks to the dyads or nymphs or whoever
was in charge of soothing the stream from Friday’s raging, turbulent mud-fest
to today’s entirely manageable water crossing.
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| It was not actually warm enough to require a snow-bath. M.S. is notoriously eccentric. |
The runners had a four-mile true trail for turkeys (much less for turkeys who chose to pay attention to the chitchat instead of the trail; they know who they are), with an extra 1.5
miles in a sort of curlicue-loop for eagles.
The nine eagles had a great time jogging across brambly, wooded mud more
or less parallel to Club View Drive, because that’s way more fun than pavement,
and doubling back on themselves via a lovely hill and so forth. The hares suffered considerable confusion
trying to find the kindly neighbor who’d volunteered an edge of his lawn for
the last stretch of the trail, and so the hounds suffered a few minutes'
confusion awaiting the setting of trail along Beach Mill. Whoops.
So sorry. But you cannot set marks along Beach Mill before the hash, given how many people drive that route on their
way to the meet. Anyway, Valiant figured
out everything without so much as a gram of flour.
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| Lovin' the Eagle Loop |
Walkers went in different directions; one group on the lane out to
Walker, where two separate motorists presented them with middle fingers for –
what, exactly? Having the gall to walk
along the street? The other group braved
the creek and strolled beside the Potomac, which was looking robust and
nation-building with all the recent melt adding muscle to its current. Everyone was back to the On In by about 4:30,
where they found a pinto-hominy pie and a seafood perloo, plus Black Box and
Yuengling and Easy Strider’s chiminea, which he lugged all the way from P.
Springs along with a cord or so of chiminea-sized log-lets. And there were cookies. There are always cookies.
Mufti did his roll call, and we welcomed Other Sandra, from Mozambique,
to her first hash with us. Yay and 99
etc. Lezley hit double-sixes, oooh, and
Rick is just three runs from a name. Two
people forgot to pay, and one person has size five-and-a-half feet and forgot
running shoes for them. See if you can tell whom from the photos, which include a few Mini Schlonga took whilst
setting. Thanks for that, MS!
