GFH3 Run #1,773; 27 September 2014

Nipples:  "What kind of a person sets a backcheck five on the turkey trail?"  Phoenix Rising:  "Heh heh heh."  Pause.  "At least it was downhill coming back."

Plus, the backcheck was only about halfway up the very long hill..

Although the funnier bit, arguably, was Air Horn beginning the brief with the announcement, "We ran into a few problems on the trail."  Specifically he, setting eagle, and PhR, setting turkey, ran into someone else's marks:  a whole bunch of floury arrows pointing some other people some other way through the Great Falls woods around Riverbend.  Luckily, the outlaw arrows had no cross-hatches, and were not paired with any kind of checks or other deviousnesses, so the hares wrote "GFH3" at frequent intervals on their overlapping trails and hoped for the best.

Another funny bit, actually, was when A.H. said turkey trail was about five miles.  Ha ha ha!  Eagles had a true trail of about six and a half, although Knipple Knocker reported 7.9 miles on his GPS.  Devon probably got more, as between outlaw arrows and Malaysian jetlag, she meandered a long way off trail and didn't make it On In until the search party was forming.

And Spurt is running again!  Welcome back!

Gorgeous weather ensured that ten turkeys and eight eagles (there were only 16 runners, but Blow in the Hole and Bionic Babe, after starting as eagles, mystically and abruptly evolved into turkeys during a moment of inattention, and thus count twice) plus ten walkers, all enjoyed their various excursions and came in smiling.  And kept right on smiling when they saw the big pot of turkey-and-chicken chili (hot sauce on the side, as A.H. did not want to make six different chilis at various levels of spiciness to suit all tastes) and the large pan of barbequed chicken.

The Associate Mufti was enjoying a Nationals win, and the Mufti was... Anyone know where the Mufti was?  Anyway, the roll showed up, so the Assistant Associate Mufti called 34 names (several people showed up late to eat and drink and camaraderie), with no birthdays or double numbers or other excitement.  Nonetheless, everyone in the photos looks pretty happy.

She's smiling in there somewhere.

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 #1,771; 17 September 2014

Drill Me, Fill Me had the house, the pool and the weather for a great hash, but his surgery schedule got in the way of setting a great trail, so Pickled Peter and Phoenix Rising showed up with their flour bags.  PhR had a route planned, "but Pickled Peter wanted to do something shorter."  And, per PhR, they set PP's route.  Everyone say, "Thank you!"  The fun backcheck nine at the very start of the run was his idea, too!

The last shall be first, except Nipple Knocker, who shall just be first.

There were several permissions required for the route, which wended its way down Springvale, into the woods, over to Utterback, back into the woods, up Buttercup, across a field and back into what one hasher termed, "real shiggy," which required bent-down running, and then up Springvale and home again, almost all 20 of them, well before sunset.  A well-set trail, with a handy built-in shortcut, that kept the main pack nicely bunched.  The 14 walkers enjoyed the warm, sunny evening with a variety of different routes, including a Valiant Tree Walk option.

Everyone enjoyed a buffet of Chinese food, the pack nicely bunched to debate what was pork, what was chicken and what was tofu.  It was all delicious.  Beverages were plentiful, and the pool inviting.  Not inviting enough to overcome the chill of a late summer night, so its waters remained unmolested, but at least one of us was seriously tempted.

Hot or cold, lit or not, everyone loves to sit around a fire.

The Mufti called the roll, welcoming back Amanda and Alex, celebrating the tardy return of Air Horn after an absence (without leave) of two months, and leading the cry for Peter's number one.  (Peter, an experienced global hasher, approved the Great Falls version.)  Mufti somewhat more decorously led a cheer for the very special guests:  DMFM's parents were kind enough to join us.  (We also got a daughter, Young Fud.)  Finally, Our Fearsome Leader raised an imperious hand and declared the spring/summer GFH3 hashing season over, announcing that it had been the best spring/summer hashing season ever.  He invited everyone to join him Saturday at Flowerkraut's at 3:00pm for the opening of the fall/winter hashing season, which he predicted would be the best fall/winter hashing season ever.  We can hope he's right -- but when is he ever wrong?

Photos right here - none yet from Radar, but this one from the Mufti.  Thanks!

"A Colorful Group of Walkers"

Photos from Radar!

Our Hash Flash, Radar, took and published his photos most every week (you can see them here) for about nine years, and then got to feeling a bit burned out by it all. He still takes them, he just got fed up with the publishing part. But now he's back! He's forwarded a bunch of photos, including for two hashes for which we previously had no photos: the Jeff Schwartz Memorial Run on 13 August, #1,766, and Cocked and Loaded and Queen Cobra's hash #1,762 on 16 July.

He also provided additional pix for runs 1,768 (Bill comes back), 1,767 (those people are not all naked, they just look like they are), 1,765 ("a little longer than I meant it to be"), 1,755 (Cracked Pot's undeserved Death March), 1751 (Mufti's 1,500th and BC3's 500th), and 1,746 (Valiant's birthday, Paula lost & found).  You can tell the new photos from the previously-posted because the new ones are way, way better -- and focus on women more.  He says he can't help it.

Thank you, Radar!

GFH3 Run #1,770; 10 September 2014

As you know, Zipperhead takes great pride in discovering some stretch of dirt, no matter how small, through which he has not previously set, for each of his runs.  Thus he claims to have included virgin territory in all but one of 54 runs he has hosted since June 1986.  (And in that one exception, he got a few friends to don quasi-virginal attire and bang tambourines or something.)  In celebration of the six-month anniversary of his four bypasses, tonight's trail continued the streak.  With Dances with Bulls lending her crafty mind as well, the hares achieved about five miles of true trail, with two disorienting loops contained within the larger loop - which Zh believes is also a first.

Zh and DwB ensured their marks were clear and true by driving most of the trail as the runners ran it, and parking by the more confusing of the cross-over points.  Whether they achieved any satisfaction in watching the 20 runners scramble, unscramble and re-scramble themselves [repeat] is not recorded.  Certainly they successfully re-set the marks required to ensure the pack worked through the second loop as successfully as they had the first.  Clever pack!

Sticking together nicely.

Eleven walkers enjoyed a very small part of the runners' trail, and all made it back to the house before dark, while the runners were still thrashing about in the woods, leaping over fallen branches and unscrambling themselves from the briars.  Headlamps and flashlight apps brightened the ever-earlier dusk.  Fortunately, though the evening was humid, the temperature wasn't outlandish, which helps keep a backcheck six entertaining instead of infuriating.

The On In seemed unusually crowded, and 35 people looked more like 50.  Maybe that's because so many of them were crowded around the table, nibbling on brownies while they waited for their turn at Phlashback's paella.  Praise for the wine offset diffidence towards the beer.

The Mufti, finding no double-number runs on his roll call, tried to make something of this being run #1770, but no one took him up on it.  So he looked again, and realized... HE MISSED SOMEONE!  It transpired that Mini Schlonga, having achieved run 199 back in June, and 199.5 in August, and 199.75 last week, had finally tripped the odometer to reach 200.  [Shouts, cheers, jeers]  So Mufti pulled out his fez [cheers, jeers, salaams], admitted that in the two months since the Exec Comm meeting he'd mislaid the list the possible names [sympathetic murmurs], and noted the Honoree's fashion sense, lack of sense regarding distances appropriate to a hash founded on the theory that three miles are plenty [jeers and lots of them], and app collection.  Valiant pointed out the Honoree's slender ankles.  [cries of befuddlement]  The Mufti then shouted the new nickname to the skies:  NIPPLE KNOCKER!  All the blonde women in the crowd demanded an exhibition of the inspiration for such a name, at which N.K. became uncharacteristically modest.

Let the knock-knock jokes commence!

Maybe next week he'll show up shirtless at Drill Me Fill Me's at 6:30. That's right, it's another early start next week. Only one person arrived in time for a 7:00 start this week; see if you can guess whom from the photos here.

Slender, yet strong, fast and flexible.

GFH3 Run #1,769; 3 September 2014

Walks on Water's stretch of Arlington contains some decent hills, but he and Mini Schlonga and Eric made the choice to eschew the most challenging of them on this hot and humid night.  Instead, they sent the pack on a non-Death March (remember the last time we were here?  Minivans carjacked to haul hashers out of the depths of the Potomac in the dead of night?) through pleasant parks, along Donaldson Run, and back through the less-undulating streets of Cherrydale and environs.

Nonetheless, while MinS insisted true trail was a (to him) paltry five miles, most of the 16 runners short-cutted in one way or another.  The holdouts?  Chip Off the Old Dick and Matt stuck with true trail, bashing their way through the second woodsy bit in the dark, and marking the checks assiduously.  Probably Bad Dog did, too; if he's made it in by now, you can ask him.

Once you've bonded like this, you've got to run the full trail.

There were 30 of us total, including Melisande without a crutch but not up for running yet, Paula abandoning the charms of Charm City for the evening, and Howard floating free of Space City.  It was, of course, well worth the trip.  The walkers got a proper trail, incorporating stretches of the runners' trail, and everyone got bratwursts and beer and WoW's family-recipe spud salad, which is delicious with or without the bacon.  Plus Tofu Pups for at least one of us, and the delightful Mo declined to be added to the roll but kindly provided us with two super-delicious and homemade cakes, moist and dense and the vanilla one filled with fruit.  Cake!

With the Mufti off doing surveillance on the Outer Banks, and the Associate Mufti performing reconnaissance in Croatia, the Assistant Associate Mufti was entrusted with the official roll, thumbing exasperatedly through the 2,006-name C List to find the couple of Mount Vernon regulars who joined us.  Also getting a tiny bit of something just a little bit sticky on the B List.  Sorry, Mufti.

Lovely view on a bit of false trail -- makes it worth the extra distance, right?

We welcomed Dana from Tampa, formerly of Arlington and soon to be of San Francisco, plus Anne, for their #1 GFH3 runs, and Chris for #2.  See if you recognize them in the photos here.  Given the early dark, you'll find fewer than usual.

See you at Zipperhead/Zipperbody and Phlashback's at 6:30!! next week.  That's right, 6:30pm next week, half an hour earlier so the Phlashheads and Dances with Bulls have a little extra daylight in which to shove you through the woods.  Fun!