Discussion: Most of the roads coming fr...

Most of the roads coming from the east were closed due to the Farmington River being on top of them. 7+ inches of rain just in the past 7 days and the earlier part of the month wasn't exactly dry. We had to bypass 4 of the usual routes coming from Tariffville, eventually crossing on 185 at the north end of Nod Rd near Talcott. And although I knew the event was at Simsbury Town Forest, I found myself pulling into Stratton Brook and wondering where everyone was. DOH!

I was just getting ready to start my course when Chris came in and reported that he thought #3 was mishung. So I ventured to the circled boulder - there was no flag, but there was a streamer, and then proceeded to lead three other 'hunters' including Steve & Phil to the correct boulder which was indeed on a logical route to #4 and had the flag hanging on it.

I also made a bold choice out of the start and decided that if I was going to get wet, might as well get wet right away, so instead of the quick trail route to #1, I elected to cross the bridge at the pavilion so I could size up the pond, stream and marsh features in the first hundred meters or so. Quite full, but the stream was quite crossable, so across I went, but then had some extra climb and veg to contend with. So a long split to #1, but I was now pre-moistened and had a solid vision of how to interpret the water features on the rest of the course. A few other minor bobbles here and there - less than a minute each but felt pretty good overall. I did wind up a bit left to the final control and wound up on the wrong side of the hill, so some extra contouring around to get to the final platform. Sorry we missed you...

You didn't both miss me. Ellen and I said hi out on the course.

I forgot the other weird thing: coming down to the trail out of #12, there were a couple of women walking a dog, and one of them said (referring to me), "Oh, I thought that was a squirrel!".

I think that's a compliment.

Were you wearing your squirrel shirt?

I was wearing a goat shirt.

I thought you might have been wearing your zebra shirt and those might have been people who don’t know the difference between a squirrel and a zebra.

I'd like to point out that Jeremy was looking at me wearing it a week ago and referred to it as a leopard shirt. I think I clarified and he doubled down. So you really don't want to hire him as a safari guide.