It was an Easter egg hunt... for
one little egg.
Greg and Lori sent the runners out into the Herndon woods at the back of the house, at the unconsciensably early hour of 3:06 or thereabouts. They got a good size pack -- about 22? -- and offered them a healthy trail of roughly four miles, with a bit of mud and brambles and a fence enclosing ten or more dogs at someone's house. Easy Strider thinks one dog, maybe two, is fine. But a dozen? The one egg, however, was near that house, and Air Horn found it right where E.S. left it, in the middle of a check that no one ever marked, and carried it back to the On In as his trophy.
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| Scrabbling, in the True Hasher fashion. |
Meanwhile, a gaggle of runners decided to stay on the road after muffing a check, instead of scrabbling back into the woods and running along the fence guarding the super-secure Fairfax County water treatment facility. Boo! Shameless shortcutters! They missed some extra mud. Not as much, however, as an entire contingent of runners who seem to have veered off long before Wiehle -- no report from those people, but there they were, on the deck, enjoying the warmth and the cloud cover and the fajitas and a wide selection of wines and beers. Maybe twelve walkers managed to divide themselves into at least three groups taking distinctly different routes; half of them arriving after the runners were all in. A very straggly hash. Whatever happened to that Fist of Discipline the Mufti promised to bring down upon us all?
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| Two kinds of tortillas, chicken and beans and veg and cheese and.... |
Anyway, the run was great, the weather was decent, and the potential sighting of a blue heron added a pleasant anticipatory tingle to enhance the beauty of springtime in northern Virginia. The food was excellent and plentiful, although it would be interesting to know where the Fist of D. was when early finishers were snarfing up guacamole by the quart.
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| Now we get serious. |
Food largely dispatched, and a very happy looking cake on the table, the Mufti broke tradition by presenting new names before calling the roll. Lori, actually at 103 runs, was up first, and was thrilled to learn that the Executive Committee's original pick of 'Nippletism' had been shortened to 'Nipples.' Acid-green t-shirt presented, she bravely raised the cup of beer-wine-water to her lips, and had the Mufti snatch it away and dump the contents over the edge of the deck to wither the mulch below.
Rick (105 runs) got to hear several of the nicknames proposed by his nearest and dearest, including 'Howls for Hooters' and 'Sugar Daddy.' He promised there are stories behind those, but didn't tell them. With a flourish, the Mufti presented the bright red t-shirt emblazoned, 'Climax Investigator.' Nipples offered C.I. the 100-run cup, and he actually swallowed a mouthful of beer-wine-Gatorade punch. It made his mouth look funny.
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| Welcome to the Executive Committee! |
Lots of cheering, hooray hooray, and short speeches, and joy abundant about the land. Mufti's roll call was pretty exciting, too, with Rachel earning five bonus runs for correctly guessing the number recorded for her on the C List (6, so she's now at 11). Aaron made it back for number two, and admitted he was unfamiliar with the local strain of poison ivy, having been here only two weeks. Oh, boy. Someone watch him carefully. Chris, Rosemary and Alyssa celebrated #1s, and Randy and Tim both hit #2. I myself reached 300 runs, and you may now all call me Bubbles, instead of the nickname being exclusive to the Ole Fud. Probably no one but me will call him Trouble, though.
It was a great hash. Nipples had prizes for the three hashers involved in discovering the egg: handsome furry ears and a little chocolate bunny. Plus cake, without even a birthday.
Check out the pix if you like; thanks to Blow in the Hole and Beef Strokemoff for shutter assistance.
