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.