GFH3 Run #1,772; 20 September 2014

The hash opened its fall/winter season with the Mufti's announcement that the next four weeks are already dibsed by eager hosts and hares, and then Spurt and Bad Dog (as proxy for Little Ricky Tutu) and maybe someone else created a foofaraw in competing for the one remaining October date.  The lesson drawn by Our Fearsome Leader?  Sign up now for a November slot!  Easy Strider:  "Isn't November usually the most popular..." [drowned out by chanting]

Controversy!  Is this the best weather ever, or was the Anniversary Hash the best weather ever?

Today was the perfect day for hosting, which is why Flowerkraut picked it.  The skies over Great Falls were balmy and blue, and the temps perfect for shorts and t-shirts with a light sheen of sweat, plus one kimono.  So 15 runners followed myriad pointing fingers to the creek, jogged downstream to the turkey/eagle split and mostly chose the eagle.  (Bubbles, briefing:  "True Turkey trail is about three miles; the Eagle about four, but it feels like five.")  There was some fairly tame shiggy and bushwhackery, and maybe a bit of new territory -- certainly terrain that Phoenix Rising hasn't trodden in many years.  Plus, an abandoned tent and a seemingly abandoned truck, and a backcheck five at the very end that brought Nipple Knocker in just behind the FRBs.  Isn't he good to find the nice backcheck for everyone?  The walkers braved the creek and strolled down to the Potomac, and found it looking hale and appropriately pastoral.

Oh, if the Marine Corps knew what he was doing with that training...

The On In offered beer in cans -- Flowerkraut loves Simpler Times -- plus Black Box wine and a bottle of bubblesy, Caribbean-style ham casserole (black-eyed peas for vegetarians), salad with tomatoes from E.S.'s garden, watermelon from same and oatmeal cookies warm from the oven.  The 24 hashers who'd managed to figure out this whole Saturday-afternoon-time-change thing basked in the sunshine from the redwood deck, counting critters spotted:  one fox, one turtle, a black snake, many deer, and approximately 7,000 cobwebs, with which pretty much everyone was festively festooned.  Also a frog, on which Matt, or maybe someone else, almost stomped.  You must not step on frogs!

No one's used to leaving the hash before sunset, and Flowerkraut likes people to stick around.

The Mufti had much to celebrate in his roll call.  Blow in the Hole made it back to the Hash, since no one schedules music-history classes for Saturday afternoons.  Paula made 55, ooh.  Todd and Candy made #1, although as their "Got Shiggy?" shirts made clear, that's #1 for the GF, not for the H3.  Perhaps they will become regulars with us, as they once were with the Okinawa H3 -- but they've got a lot of hashing options in the DC area.  If you take a look at the pictures (thanks, Irene and NipK!), you might quite reasonably think nothing could get better than the GFH3.

GFH3 Run #1,740; 22 February 2014

Sure, you’ve had better trails, but have you had much better weather than over-60 and sunshine in February?  And how about the view from Flowerkraut’s back deck, with the rolling pasture sloping to the creek into which no one fell, as Paddle My Candee Ass and Air Horn’s minor slips just don’t count as falls?  All this, and 31 of your favorite hashers with which to share it – what a hobby, or club, or whatever this thing is.

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.

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.

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!

GFH3 Run #1,673; 8 Dec 2012

Check the gas tank, hashers -- we're off to Paeonian Springs for another in a long, long series of gorgeous, warm, sunshiny hashes.  Easy Strider, Flowerkraut and Susie Calico were waiting on the beautifully-landscaped front deck to greet about 25-30 of Great Falls's finest.  While the walkers strolled off up the street, the runners set out to cross the girder and climb to the hill to the W&OD trail.  "They do that every time," E.S. noted with amazement as the pack headed in the wrong direction.  There was some confusion or contention over the meaning of the first check and its extra arm; once addressed by the kindly hare, the runners made for the fields.  E.S. nonetheless felt a responsibility to sweep up behind.

Mystifying?

Plenty of cross-country trail in this run, and at least one low-running stream, and I'm guessing a few cow pats.  About two-thirds of the pack chose to cut the trail "short" -- remember who's setting, now.  Waiting near the W&OD, after a brisk walk, for the would-be eagles, I saw a fox race across the field, not more than ten meters from me, its brush streaming out behind.  Beautiful.  As the ads say:  "Paeonian Springs.  It's worth the trip."

Mildly scratched up around the ankles and lower legs, everyone made it home thirsty for great beer.  We also got a round of pizza and salad, and a bevy of desserts.  Wine, of course, though you can pretty much tell that it's not the focus at this on-in.

Not-Scarlet checks out the walkers' on-trail find.

Moaner Lisa and Naughty Nurse showed up for the easy part, the former celebrating something like 945 runs.  And Peanut was there again, as was Scarlet, now named something else I knew I would forget.  This re-naming of critters who have already been introduced...

Click here for photos.