I came. I climbed. I slipped, I fell. But I accomplished my goal of completing the trail. Well, the “sane” hashers version of the trail, which, as is our custom, contained some shortcuts and deviations. Still, I hung with the group, a little slower than normal, but that wasn’t unexpected. What was different for me was experiencing some lightheadedness during the main climb of the day, which manifested itself as a feeling of being unbalanced.

A light rain began falling just before we headed out, and I overcame the urge to use that as an excuse to bail out of the hike. I did feel obligated to at least try. The rain put a fine glaze on the mud, which made for some slippery going, especially on the big downhill portion of the trial. I eventually lost my feet and came down hard on my ass, but luckily I landed in mud and not on a rock.

The On-Home was at Blue Butterfly, and I sat in the outdoor area for my pre-circle beer drinking, as did many of the other Hashers. Speaking of beer drinking, I had another example of my sense of taste being potentially altered–I did not like the flavor of my old favorite San Mig Zero. Kind of a bitter aftertaste, and even after several bottles, the flavor still sucked. Weird.

The AC was blasting inside, and I was still wet with sweat, so I made the decision not to participate in the circle. I did get called in to sit on the ice for my Hash crash which seemed out of order to me, and I groused about it some. Yeah, I wasn’t kidding that another aftereffect of this illness has been to make me grumpier than usual. Oh well, this, too, shall pass.

And so endeth another Hash adventure.