How “a rose between 2 thorns” transforms into “the 3 stooges”

How “A Rose Between 2 Thorns” transforms into “The 3 Stooges”
I have been doing this Nova Scotia version of a ROGAINE since Mike Haines organized the first one some 10 or more years ago in behind Wentworth Ski Hill. Every year we learn something more and get a bit older and wiser. Yes we registered early (and I am sorry we took someone’s name from last year but we didn’t know and it just seemed so fitting) Having in past years found it hard to find the registration point, this year proved no different. But I have learned from previous years. I had read the location “Fire Hall on the Hammonds Plains Rd” so I told my teammates that I would meet them at the Timmies on the Tantallon end of the Hammonds Plains Rd at 0630. (You do know there are 3 Timmies on the Hammonds Plains Rd., but that is yet another story from another weekend) We were all there at 0630, starting out great. I said, “I’ll zip down and pick up the registrations at the fire hall and meet you at McD’s, same shopping centre.” I zip down to the new fire hall just across the 103 past the new high school. Kind of quiet with a sign that says “Opening Spring 2011.” Wrong fire hall. I do have my written “participant notes” but it doesn’t give directions.
Ok, men don’t ask directions but I head down to the Irving on the old #3 and ask where the fire halls are around here. Well there is one in Black Point and one heading out towards Peggy’s Cove and one way back on the Hammonds Plains Rd. Back to find my Teammates at the McD’s and they aren’t there but there are competitors there with their maps. Ok again men don’t ask directions but, “Where do you register?” “Oh, back up the Hammonds Plains Rd about 10k.” Oh, I actually drove by there on my way to the 0630 meeting so……… off I go. Get to registration and find I need my teammates to sign the waiver ………… Back to the shopping centre. Oh by now, I have to refuel as I hadn’t planned on using all my gas. As I am finishing filling up, my teammates show and I tell them we all have to register in order to sign the waiver. I leave my dog and climb into Shannah’s car and we head back to the registration.
Back to McD’s to start to plan. Now I have to admit when I first started doing these I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what took a couple of hours of careful map studying to find. We just looked for our first control and when in the field went from there.
We actually threw a few scenarios around and decided to go for the air photo points as they were all worth 100 and when we found the bearing ones there was another in the same area. So we had a plan. Do those and depending on the time left, pick up a few more on the return.
We decide to go in one vehicle. I get Tess, my dog, and my fanny pack (carefully packed up the night before) and jump in with Yigit and Shannah and Shannah’s dog, Lucy.
Off to the start, We get all our gear out of the car and head for the check-in. Now Shannah knows she doesn’t have a whistle, but I do have compasses for everyone as neither Shannah nor Yigit have one. I go first, water? Oops… when I grabbed my pack both bottles slid out onto my seat but Shannah has an extra bottle – solved. Knife … man, this fanny pack always has a couple but now I remember that the last time I had it out was on a flight to Mexico. Knives are contraband on Air Canada flights. No problem, as I tell the guy checking I’l go back to my car as I always have a couple of knives there. I head out only to remember that my car is back in Tantallon, so as Yigit comes out I ask to borrow his knife for the check-in. Yigit is from Turkey and hasn’t quite caught on to some of our customs. So when I asked him to bring a knife, he brought a steak knife, carefully wrapped in paper towel. Without thinking I run back in with “my” knife and immediately the guy at the check-in recognizes it so I go borrow one from a couple of women. Finally check-in completed.
We decide to put our maps (with the exception of the air photo) into in one plastic bag with the topo on one side and the control descriptions on the other.
About noon we stop for a lunch and drink. Off we go, quickly getting another control and finally we are out to the road. I go to get the topo maps which we haven’t been using for a while, and can’t find them. Shannah realizes that she has lost her cell phone and it is probably back where we had lunch. We borrow an extra map from another team and head back and retrace our steps and voila, there is the cell phone, right where we had lunch. We pick up another control and make it back in time to get the bonus 20 points.
We actually did very well getting every control we were looking for (a definite first for me) and having many laughs. 16th out 40 teams - not bad for an old guy with an artificial hip and a couple of newbies. Hey we all agreed we’ll be back and we couldn’t possibly mess it up any worse next year.

Source: http://ecoendurancechallenge.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/A-Rose-Between-Two-Thorns.pdf