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 #1,768; 27 August 2014

The Return of Bill!  And, for a change of pace, a North Reston trail!  The Bill part is more entertaining, however, so let's explain:  Bill used to hash with GFH3, back in 2006, 2007-ish, but had gotten out of the running habit (work, kids, etc.).  He wanted to get back in shape.  So he decided the way to achieve his fitness goal was to host a hash -- and get someone else to set the trail, so he could run it, so he'd have to start running again so he'd be ready to run his own hash.  All clear?  Anyway, I said I'd be happy to assist, and he started training, with Rasta the lovely vizsla's help, and tonight they ran the hash together, for the first time in six or seven years, so yay.

Bill, Rasta and Bill set up for guests.

They had 17 friends to help them, and so cascaded down the back lawn and into the Reston trails, which took them to the Herndon trails, south and back east again and up the Fairfax County Parkway (turkeys) or the pipeline (eagles, who surely enjoyed the dry-stream crossing), and hence back to the house with four or five miles on the GPS from a 3.85 mile true trail.  The nine or ten walkers had a paved loop of just over one mile, and most exercised the option of extending that a bit with some out-and-back stuff.  It was a nice night for extending:  hot, perhaps, but dry and sunny until the sun set.

No Jamaican feast this time, just good old Chesapeake-Bay shrimp boil, plus a pescatarian variation with Bayou country spices.  We drank sparkling wine (get it?  We'll wait...  Get it?  Bubbles?), Rolling Rock and Red Hook and Black Box and lots of other stuff.  Rolling Rock goes best with a shrimp boil.  There were birthday cookies for Puss in Boot and a birthday cake for me (very surprised; Heater Beater is both devious and duplicitous).

Also, Mini Schlonga returned from his looooong
summer break to celebrate his 199.5th run with GFH3.

The Mufti called the roll, but maybe didn't record the #1s of Bill the Nephew or Megan.  Perhaps they'll join us next week, in Arlington, and we can all shout, "98 to the cup!"  Bill the Host responded to the Mufti Challenge (get ten extra runs if you know your count from years ago) by guessing 25, but he was actually at 27.  The Mufti drew a limp hand across his relieved brow before marking the attendance sheet.  The putative flash (second-grade version) was too busy boiling and baking to take many photos, but there are a very few right here.

Here is the story of how the GFH3 met Bill, who reports the group is a little slower and a little louder than when he was a regular lo those half-dozen or so years gone by:  In the fall of 2005, Blow in the Hole attended her first hash on the recommendation of Thanks for the Mammaries.  She joined us infrequently over the next several months, but on one of those occasions, Zipperhead told her that a hasher ought to host by the time of his or her tenth run.  So, on her tenth run, in summer 2006, she hosted.  She rented the party room at her swim club in Herndon, right near the Reston line and the Runnymede and Sugarland trails, and TftM and I'm Not Dead Yet helped her scout and set trail.

While scouting, they decided they needed a cut-through from the stream trails onto the streets near Fairfax County Parkway, and so rang a doorbell or two.  Bill answered one, and when TftM asked whether he'd mind a few nice people jogging across his lawn on Wednesday evening, Bill said, "Is that a hash?  Why not have them run right through the house instead?"  So the trail went across the stream, up the yard, onto the deck, with a big blob of flour right by the back door.  And the pack went across the stream, slowly into the yard, and then milled about by the deck, asking each other if anyone knew who lived here.  Bill invited them in, and they went, tentatively, in the back door and out the front, where Bill had set up the lawn sprinkler as it was an exceedingly hot night.  And a couple of weeks later he came to the hash as a runner.  Welcome back, and thanks for hosting!

GFH3 Run #1,747; 12 April 2014

What a day for a celebration, or a small slew thereof.  The sun has finally returned for good, and something like 55 barbarians broke down the gates at Air Horn’s to help him celebrate his something-or-othereth birthday and the marriage, last fall, of his charming daughter Brogue Bait to the delightful Seth.  BB and Seth attracted a whole bunch of whippersnapper friends and relatives, including the ridiculously whippersnapperish Mallory, who hasn’t yet begun to toddle.  The Mount Vernon H3 sent a half-dozen or so representatives, attracted by the 70-degree temps, the woodlands of Great Falls, and the possibility of champagne.

Do this.  Go these ways.  Marks are on the ground, or somewhere.

AH and Pumpmaster set, and Pumpmaster promised to sweep, carrying home any victims of his youthful exuberance in one arm.  Ah, to be young in the springtime, and a professional gym rat.  AH reminded everyone that cars + hashers = danger, and regretted the intrusion of roads into his trail.  Then everyone ran away, except the walkers.  The walkers stayed for advice on where to walk, and then they all strolled away and began ignoring the advice.

If they are going to make days this beautiful, you might as well run around in them.

About an hour after they set out, the runners emerged from Riverbend Park onto Riverbend Road, and then it was only a hop (up onto the shoulder, to be out of the way of the cars), skip (up and down the pipeline hills) and a jump (over a little creek) until they were back at the On In.  Shortcutters finished first, unless they walked their shortcut, in which case they came in after the sweeper.  AH finished his Peruvian-chicken run a few minutes after the last runners arrived.  Everyone fell to with vigor when the hosts started stirring that delicious green sauce Peruvians serve with their chicken.  After a while, with the first hunger pangs sated, the hosts started popping corks, AH sending them high over, and eventually down into, the crowd.  People grabbed their bubbly, added o.j. as desired, and started toasting.  AH also, in an excess of celebratory spirit, demanded his birthday song, which this reporter found unusually painful.  Thanks to Rick for that. 

Heads up! but only if you're wearing safety goggles.

On behalf of the Hash, the Mufti presented the not-that-newlyweds with a handsome hare to decorate their happy home.  AH made the usual pseudo-speech.  The double-barreled cake (vanilla for birthday; chocolate for marriage) was trimmed with the same china cake-toppers that decorated AH and his late wife’s wedding cake 40-ish years ago.  Sweet.

Mufti started roll-calling.  Paula arrived, damaged but undefeated, at the double-4s; was it Sally at double-3s?  Seth made seven.  Land Ho made it to two hashes in a row, and promised to come back really soon.  She’s taken a j-o-b, so Saturdays may be busy for a while, and she’s working at a marina, so the employee discount may make the paychecks moot.  Ole Fud abandoned us for West Point and lacrosse honors, but Double-Breasted Booby flew in from the west coast just to see her favorite hash.  A bunch of people won cheers for their first hashes, huzzah huzzah and 99 to the.  Next week should see Rick and Lori with their new names finally awarded, and Mufti and BC3 will host on the first Wednesday, which is to say 7 May, at the pavilion.  They will, on that occasion, finally achieve their 1,500^th and 500^th runs, respectively.

There are photos of much of the celebration and some of the sunshine right here.

And they lived happily ever after.