As I sit here trying to wash the dust out of my mouth with crappy beer I fell obligated to write a few notes about this year's Crown King trip.

The trip started in typical fashion with the herding of the cats at TNT's place. Condom and 3IY showed up first (I'm still in shock about that one.) to witness my piles of stuff to get loaded up. I repeatedly ignored their questions like "are you sure my truck can make the trip" and "where exactly do you expect all this shit to go?" Duck and bob people, duck and bob. Next Impotent showed up and yes people his name is pronounced "Im-po-tent" . Do not let him try to tell you it's "I'm-potent" . Next is Rabid Transit and his buddy Mike who's non-hash nickname is "Burbs" as witnessed by his license plates. More questions like, "is all of this shit actually going? Everything?"

A few moments to digress. The name of the game is pack what is essential like four 30 packs of beer. Or like Cum Again? who thinks a gross of cookies that is in a box about half the size of the box I have ALL the food packed in.for
the entire weekend. Those damn cookies.I think we ate one package.

Alright then, back to the story. So we stood around in dismay of the crap until I yelled all right people MOVE MOVE MOVE!! Pack it up, lets see if we can get all this stuff to fit. Immediately Rabid Transit started to cry and sniffle, "I thought everyone was joking about you yelling at me." Boo freaking hoo buddy. Pack this crap in let's get on the road. We got about everything to fit but the kitchen sink and my Mom and Dog, so we thought when Rabid Transit was once again having issues getting "it" to fit. His response much to my Mom's dismay, "Spit on it and push harder". You will want to remember that quote. Belay last, just call it the theme of the weekend.

So we get on the road, I'm sporting some lovely motion sickness wonder woman bracelets that work by annoying the piss out of you so much that you forget your going to heave. We hit the gas station, which took FOREVER!! Apparently
Mike didn't like his gas pump and had to try out a few different ones. Then the trip thru Sun City always thrilling when the max speed limit is about 30mph or a golf cart's max speed.

We were apparently all starving and had the EXACT same thought about stopping at the Wild Horse Saloon for a burger but since we ALL forgot the walkie talkies had no way to communicate and pushed on. We got to Lake Pleasant and wound our way to the Champie Road and left pavement at 12:38pm. Now there's some masterfully organization. We are ON TIME!!!

The guys (Rabid and Mike) forged ahead at break neck speeds, Impotent and I hung back to make sure that 3IY and Condom didn't miss the turn off. It was at our last turn that the car sickness finally won out. Word to the wise, if you
are even a little bit susceptible to motion sickness NEVER NEVER EVER EVER get into a vehicle with Impotent. So, completely devoid of all bodily fluid we pressed on. We told Rabid and Mike to meet us at the "parking lot" just before the forest boundary.

Along we go until we came across a jeep wrangler pretty much hanging by a tree root and Rabid and Mike stopped to give assistance. Apparently the jeep's owners ran into some trouble trying to play cowboy. When I first spotted
the jeep I thought the only way it could have gotten into that actual position was by rolling.

Turns out that was almost what happened. We attached some tow straps, and got the jeep back on 4 wheels instead of just the one. The owners of the vehicle professed their deep and undying love for us, promised us much beer, and continued on with us trying to drive us off the trail until they became overly bored and continued onto Crown King with out power steering. Serves them right!

It took us about 2.5 hours to reach Ft. Misery. Rabid and Mike insisted on having a little fun in some of the area's that you can romp around and Rabid managed to somehow knock out his breaks. Now this will be an important fact
later in the story. He still has an emergency break, isn't that just precious! We reached Ft Misery ahead of them and proceeded to take in the area when Rabid and Mike pulled in and INSISTED in parking in bedroom of our weekend home. After much complaining I finally got them to actually back vehicles up to the area where we need to unload to reduce how many trips needed to be made carrying all the crap I packed.

Once again the parked in the bedroom when done off loading supplies. It was at this point they realized they had no tent, forgot their camp chairs, oh and the best part, the back of both of their trucks was completely soaked. Now that is not really "that" big of a deal, unless you have to sleep there. Oh wait, they did have to sleep there, because they forgot their tent! As it turns out since they were sleeping in the trucks it was okay to park them in the bedroom of our weekend retreat.

I assigned Rabid fire duty and 3IY erection duty. Condom and or organized stuff and figured out which cooler had the good beer. We remember and had room for the chainsaw this year to cut some wood for the fire. So, at this point I sat
around and watched the men work, most fun I had all weekend. We greeted some passing travelers, convincing them all to stay in Crown King and party with us Saturday night.

3IY and everyone but me spent about an hour trying to actually erect our erection. You would think this job is easy I've seen Barbie erect the same erection in 20 min flat. It took 4 men and Condom all pointing yelling suggestions about an
hour to "get it up". This is apparently normal for 3IY as far as erections go. Alas, we have a completed erection and we made a decision to leave the roof separate from the legs incase of wind issues. We suggested to Rabid and Mike they
should sleep under the roof with the spare queen air mattress. Being manly men it was unacceptable to share a air mattress with each other. Some type of concerned that Mike likes to spoon and snuggle too much.he's been a little
lonely recently.

Now for tent putting up, Impotent is in charge of my tent and got that puppy up fast, 3IY brought a tent older than him! He and Condom decided to sleep in their bedroom and set up their tent over in the "trailer" park area of the site, across the damn dry creek (pronounced crick) bed.

Next we got our fire going and as soon as the sun went down it started to get cold, fast. Condom proceeded to put on ALL of her clothing at once and switched from drinking cold beer to room temp wine from a box. It was about time for dinner and that is when Dozy showed up in his Ford Explorer which I shall from here on call, the POS.

We started off with a salad and then moved on to lasagna that I made that morning before we headed out which was still warm so we didn't even need to re-heat it. Again, masterful planning by TNT. Okay so I forgot that I packed 3 loaves of garlic break until Saturday at 1pm. Okay so I also forgot I had baco's and shredded cheese in the cooler that got lost in the ice and found Sunday morning about 1am.

Now Dozy was trying to put his tent up with all of us as an audience during the salad course of dinner. At one point we looked over and his entire air mattress had escaped the tent. We explained several times that it's easier to put in "limp" and let it get hard inside but he never caught on.  Instead he offered some lame explanation on how the tent is perfect size for the air mattress, and the problem was the inflator when attached to the air mattress made it too large for the tent. Right. To this our response? All together now, "spit on it and push harder".

Now darkness set in and we drank a lot of beer, then some more, well better have some more. We all hit the hay about 11pm. Rabid and Mike in their wet truck beds. It took them 30 min giggling like school girls to settle in. Finally, they figured out how to get in the back of there trucks and get the hatch closed.  Mike soon realized once he got in he couldn't get out and begged Rabid to please let him out in the morning. Rabid kept yelling don't wake me up before 9am. The
rest of us settled into tents. I'd just settled down for a nice little rest when the urge to go potty overwhelmed me causing a midnight trek. I went to where Condom said she set up the "restroom" only to realize it was in the middle of the darn trail! So I finished up and crawled back into the tent only to get almost back into my sleeping bag (any idea how hard it is to move with flannel pants in a flannel sleeping bag?) when I heard a noise. An ATV came thru on the trail where I was just peeing at midnight! Scared the bejesus out of me. I woke up about 12 times in the night. Every time I woke up I could here Rabid snoring. Then the freaking owl. That feathered pain in the ass was whoing all damn night long. I think it was trying to taunt us into coming into the open so it might attack. I made darn sure he was cleared out before I left the tent at 6am. By this point our air mattress was completely flat so there was no using trying to sleep.

The next morning about 6:30am Rabid emerged from his truck and we started our day. It took us until about 8am to get awake and that is about when the first truck helping with the race showed up. It was now we started moving at full speed finishing up the aid station, laying trail for the runners, putting up the banner, getting chairs ready. Jody the official race trail marker came thru quite as a mouse and left before the com guys even noticed. They asked about 30 min after she left if we had seen her. This is also about the max of their usefulness.  The trucks with runners bags finally showed up later than
expected and the first runners started rolling in about 9:45 also much later than everyone expected. Sphinxter was the first hasher hiking to Ft. Misery showed up, then Cum Again. Those two settled into filling up runners water bottles. Dozy
and Impotent were in charge of tracking and bags. 3IY and Condom random tasks and spraying water on the runners, Rabid and Mike milled around running over beer from the cooler and checking on runners. I was mixing the margarita's and serving drinks.

This was pretty much how the rest of the afternoon went. Ima showed up with out Deet. Deet abandoned her ATV up course, a rescue had to be staged for her. Nordic and WD30 showed up eventually as well. Condom broke into the lunch fixings and then about 1pm we started to close up shop to get back to Crown King. We had quite a few DNF's that wanted rides and we had like 8 trucks.

It was at this point someone convinced 3IY that the trail was no harder than what we had already come thru and that he should drive Condom's jeep up the "fast" way to CK. So once everything was packed and everyone had a ride in a vehicle we got the show on the road. I asked for a ride from Rabid who at this point reminded me he has no breaks. I decided to roll the dice and went for it. What the hey, you only live once!

Now from Ft Misery to the turn off at the 192 there are only two trouble spots. Less capable vehicles should take the turn off at the 192 and go thru a much easier much flatter, but a little longer road thru this quaint little town called Minnehaha. Now, this was the way I had highly recommended 3IY take because of his concern about damaging Condom's jeep. Little did I know that we would be stuck behind Dozy and his POS for HOURS!

Dozy and his POS had a little trouble at the two spots just south of the cut off at 192. Now at this point we drove past the cut off and I was questioning why the less capable vehicles were continuing up the trail instead of turning off. Okay seriously pass a beer, I'm empty. On we go, Dozy and his POS get so hung up at every spot his passengers abandoned ship and walked back to Crown King and got their 2 hours before us. He didn't want us to pull him out of some of the spots with a tow strap and eventually we had to insist. He had so much trouble we left the tow strap on this truck, only
to then have to stop 2-3 times so he could untangle that from his wheels. By the 3-4 time we were caught behind them the other 5 vehicles stuck behind us asked up to pull over so they could complete the trip with out stopping. This took a bit of work as the trail is rather narrow. So still not having even made it to the next aid station at mile 28. 3IY and Condom
ran out of beer. We had to break out the Rock Star and vodka. Then we ran out of that.

At this point Rabid and I had bonded over near death experiences and sitting sideways on a hill so others could pass. We sounded like the twins even uttering the same curses in sync. This worked towards our advantage later at the bar!  We pushed on to one last bugger of a spot, Mike goes up it no problem, Rabid goes up it no problem, 3IY goes up no problem, Dozy got stuck and we were there an hour. This was the last major problem, just a few smaller one's that
required Dozy to try 3-4 different times to get over them.  Finally, we made it to the point in the trail in the pines that
signals we are close to Crown King. This stretch eventually turns down hill and into a well maintained road. Now, remember Rabid has no breaks! Yeeeehhhaaa! !!! 3IY was trying to take it easy but was in our way, I tried to call their cell to remind them of the break issue but never got thru. I tried yelling out the window to move as well. no response. So after some application of the emergency breaks and fish tailing we arrived in Crown King to a traffic jam.

I had everyone throw out all ARR gear at the Saloon and then we went and parked at our cabins and headed back to the Saloon to have dinner. It took us 3 hours to go 8miles. 3IY said we went an average of 3 mph. Good news is I didn't get car sick! After chow we all headed back to the cabins to go get cleaned up. Darkness fell again and Nordic got ready to lay trail. A few of us had some butterscotch schnapps before we left and then some of us short cut and beat the hare to
the bar, the others had all types of shiggy to deal with.

At the bar we grabbed a table outside and by the time we managed to get our drinks the karaoke was starting. Ima immediately put in for his favorite songs and  we settled into a long night of drinking and singing. Condom and I decided
to stick with tradition and had several root beer schnapps shots. Most stuck to beer. Condom and Deet decided to electric slide to EVERY song. Sphinxter decided not to sing but wanted to, but was having Old Timers problems and couldn't think of songs he knew. I sang a few songs for Condom to electric slide to and we just kept drinking and dancing all night long. Well most of us. 3IY sat in the corner and chatted with an old family friend for most of the evening. Condom had to tell some other female patron that she was too tall for her to get her to quit feeling her up. They told us they were about to stop for the night when I realized that Rabid  had not yet completed his song "I Touch Myself" by the Divinals. So with a round of cranberry and vodka we got him ready to go with his new "boobs". I eventually agreed to sing and
he could just look pretty with his boobies and dance.

So then it was Rabid's turn and up on stage we went to ROCK the house!!  I have never seen people laugh so much. We appointed the song "ours" and are going to work out choreography and everything. We promised to practice so that
when we go to Perth next year we'll be even better! So with the bar closing we headed back to the cabins to drink some more. Nordic, Cum Again, WD all went to bed.

Rabid, Mike, myself, 3IY and Condom had a few more drinks before we went to bed. I woke up about 3am to a 90 degree cabin. 5am came and it started to get too light out for me to sleep. About 6am I gave up and made coffee. Sphinxter and I packed up and were ready to leave the cabin about 8am. Rabid and Mike showed up on queue
to head for breakfast.

The race director Barbie stopped over for a muffin and some coffee before he headed back to the valley.

We headed for breakfast only to find that The Mill does not open until 9am it use to be 8am, and what was worse they won't serve alcohol till 10am. Since they are a restaurant the use to serve when ever they were open. So we piddled around a bit, went shopping at the Crown King Curio then the General store then headed up the hill for chow. Breakfast
complete Sphinxter and I headed back to valley. Rabid and Mike also left again with the no breaks. I didn't hear about anyone getting into a horrific crash on the way home so I'm assuming we all made it safe and sound!

Ta-da!!! Who's ready for next year? Mike defiantly is!! Even though he didn't say the all important quote, I think we should name him Spit on It!!

Again thanks to everyone who made this one of the best trips to Crown King in recent history. The runners had nothing but compliments and thanks for us all!!

On-to Hash Hour Friday-On

"Yes, yes, you must give us all a good spanking, and then after the spanking
the oral sex."

Nikki "TnT" Barton