Got ready for the hash. Look at what clothes to bring. Looks like it stopped raining. It's warm too. Opt for shorts. Was thinking of my tight orange pants that WMD keeps mentioning. So choose my orange not-so-tight shorts. And I find my zebra-stripped Juventus soccer club jersey, yeah, why not. Purple socks ? perfect match. And I am set. Quick check on the maps on the area. Look for geocaches, find two, usually they are best indicators for shiggy in the area. From their webpages I can see topo maps, and Memory-O the terrain. At one geocache, Bear Trap), there is a cute pond, but geocache site says its 3.5 km from hash start. Don't think the hare will take us there. Most likely the hare will take us to the area of another geocache, Memorial Cache, seems there is some sort of munipal parkland. Spring is in the air, it stopped raining, I am thinking there will be 30 people at hash-start. The instructions said not to park on grass, so I see there are six cars parked on the driveway alone. Inside the garage seeking shelter from the just-finished-raining elements, I see Death March, Folker, Digger, Buffalo Nut, Noah, Hung Like This, Pine Nuts, Toybox, Spermit. At chalktalk, small display of flea market items such as ceramic doves and bunnies pulling a easter egg, and other typical grandma's house fireplace mantle memorabilia. I just had been at a flea market, and at fill-a-bag-for-a-buck, picked up some small items to fill the geocaches that I will be placing. Kids love this junk. Another flea-market find going around is the 1950's booklet "Beautify your Figure", and HLT quickly finds on page 36, "Four types of breasts: small, medium, large, sagging", with photographs [on copyright page, it says that the photographer is "Bruno from Hollywood"]. Chalk talk is over, and we're on. After a few turns on pavement, we quickly get to a flooded grassy lane following a pipeline or sewer line. Reaches a highway, flour points to into a culvert, now flooded. Walk over highway (not under), ford flooded stream, and, thinking of the now-nearby geocache location, go right. Find a false (it will be the only false I see all day). The rest of the pack went left. Noah is emerging from the creek, his "waterline" mark on his clothing is pretty much at the ombelical cord level. What happened ? he made and educated guess on where to cross, and it turned out it was a deep hole, "it just got deeper and deeper". He must have picked the narrowest point, where it sharply bends, with tree roots on the other side. We find a check. Death March yells false from far ahead. Folker is climbing the steep hillside, trumpet sound soon follows. He's on. After altitude gain, we parallel creek side, find a tent, sleeping bag inside. But no porn stained magazines, jeez, homeless people are becoming way too civilized nowadays. What am I going to see next time I open those curtains? Laura Bush having tea? Some trouble finding marks. All FRBs naturally gravitate uphill in all directions, but no marks. Minutes later, Death March descends slightly and finds marks. We're back on. More forest, then edge of a clearing. House nearby, don't get too close. Wooded spur overlooking small ravine and creek. See marks. Down and steep up. No marks (true trail, we learn later from the hare, followed ravine down to creek below), but 200 meters later, hear Folker's trumpet, who somehow we haven't seen since the tent, and must have made a big run-about around to get there. He's charging diagonally up on a trail uphill. Then, I hear the hare's "on-back", really low, at 10 decibel range. I see Digger's Lime Green reflective shirt at the end of a parking lot. Yell on-back to folker, he gets it, he stops, returns. Cross parking lot, talk to hare. Folker was following on-in trail backwards, she explains. We wait for the pack. Minutes later we're back on, follow creek. I see road parallel, get to road, get to bridge as FRBs on creek are still following marks 40 meters away. See arrow pointing back on bridge. Yell arrow, we all run on road back. Hare is on the creek, sees us, yells us to go back to bridge, that arrow is for the on-in. Back to bridge, follow creek, more creek, some thorny shiggy, then road. Then, the Mysterious Forces of Randomness, creates the event of the day. Right there, in the middle of the paved road, a hard-pack of 20 Marlboro Lights cigarettes. I yell back to Spermit, they're for you. But Death March, with his 220 lbs gravitational-pull-at-sea-level-planet-Earth, must be campaigning for Stomp Smoking Out, and crushes the pack with one soft paw. I pick up the poor remains of these Virginia Blend barn-air-dried precious leaves, gently pocket them in my teen-age orange pants pocket #6, you know, the one near the knee with velcro straps for that teen-age-attention-grabbing-accessory, and promise, I promise, will make DM do a down-down for this later. Get to an intersection of roads and powerline. No marks on up and down of paved, and on one powerline, go to other powerline, find marks, back on, soon to edge of a clearing, electrified fence. Some yells, is the juice on? try it, i say, see if its on. No need, there is missing wire at one point. Reach paved road. Follow that for a while. Looks like we are getting a tour of all of Westmoreland County. Soon, the typical and idiomatic and recognizable architectural elements of a public park begin to appear at horizon. Straight from Christopher Alexander's book, "A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction", we see a pond, a picnic shelter, a playground. This is where the beer must be. I recognize the location, not from having been there, but from reading the maps online just before the hash. This is where the geocache is located, the one I discounted as being potential hash-trail candidate because I judged it for being too far. Pine Nuts synch-steps with mine, we're running in unison, I tell "I know this place. There is a geocache there". Soon, at the far corner of pond, the shelter, a cicled B mark, the mark searched for one hour. Bags are in the thorns nearby. BBQ chips, baked taco chips, Yuengling beer. Twenty minutes later, we on again, the nature trail is nearby, signage for "Bear Trail" becomes "Beer Trail" and Spermit yells there is beer there. Back on road, a T-intersection, then a road uphill, another road, a lama farm, crest on a pass. Around here is where I start noticing there is a dog following us, a golden retriever type. We lose marks, I run downhill on road, true trail was into the woods following downhill a powerline. Loop around and catch them from below. More jaggers. Back on road (briefly), then, the most jaggered creek ever, kudos for the hare, reach a road and large lot, Folker, Spermit, Death March looking for marks. DM finds them, more creek crossing. Dog hesitates to ford the creek, but, by peer pressure of fellow homonids, the canine makes across. Words of encouragement to the canine. Follow a gasline, edge of a clearing going parallel to a road and creek, reach a man-made fishing pond. B mark. [name here] takes a swin in the pond. Two local fishermen join us. We're on again, follow creek along clearing. The dog is still with us, he has a "virtual fence" collar, Pine Nuts notes "must be a really big fence". Follow creek, it is wedged between two private properties. Folker steers away from one of the properties, whose home owner is outside staring at us. But he has a dog, we have a dog, dogs like each other, so the land owner likes us too. "Canines makes homonids friendlier", my bumper sticker should say. We then see again the famous white flour arrow, the one we saw an hour before. Hey, we're on the on-in now. It's official. At T-intersection, FRBs climb up the hill to follow true trail. Why bother, I think, I just walk across the VFD banquet hall lot and arrive at highway traffic stop confortably. This is where Buffalo Nut starts panicking, "I don't want to see it", visions in her mind of a tire-marked bloody body of a dead canine on the edge of a highway. We call for the dog, "come here, Chance". Yeah, that's his name on the dogtag. He darts and zig-zags to avoid us. Then, we got him. Vehicles zipping by slow down to a crawl, all very concerned to avoid the peripatetic canine. We improvvise a leash with a shirt, and pedestrianly make it across the highway. True trail then went left in the shiggies, and the pack split in two. On a shopping strip along the road, a concerned driver, who earlier witnessed the apparently owner-less dog and its over excitement in maybe challenging Evil Keneevel in crossing a four-lane highway blindfolded, was waiting for us on a parking lot and inquired about the dog. Soon, cellphone at hand, she was communicating with the owner, and voila', a happy solution was found. In giving our location, and looking around for recognizable shopping stores, someone notices there is chinese restaurant. I am thinking that there is opportunity here for a "Solution to the Canine Question", possibly benefiting the owner of the $5.99 All-You-Can-Eat buffet. We walk/run back to the hare's house. FukStik is there waiting for us. He got 15 minutes late, his trademark, was able to hear Folker's trumpet, and followed trail to the tent and to the VFD banquet hall parking lot, but then, he also found an arrow for the on-in that was marked by the co-hare sweeping from back of the pack. Oh well. He ended up back to the hash-start (but still managed to get at least 3 miles out of it anyway, and that's sans beer stops). Food is chili on buns, salad, brownies, vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup. Leaving before Circle, handed to Spermit the cigarette pack, pointing to Death March, "make him do a down-down".
True Trail
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