TALES OF THE MONGREL
“If Its Spring, It Must Be Chicken” by Ralph Arata
OK, OK…..before I get started on the Spring Chicken Rally, I will it make clear that “Team Arata” didn’t finish it! No, we didn’t have car trouble and, no, we didn’t get lost. We DID run out of time! Kirk Bork tried something a little different this year. He simply provided 9 checkpoint addresses, each with a MG trivia question to answer. Once you got the “methodology” down moving from checkpoint to check point wasn’t bad.
Susan and I showed up as part of the 11 car starting procession. It threatened some rain but nothing much really materialized. We had figured, the night before, that we had until about 2:30 to 3:00PM to finish the rally (we would miss the tradtional meal @ the end) and get home to pick up the kids from the neighbors.
The role of the navigator soon became relegated to the designated “runner” in to the gas stations to get directions and look at local phone book maps, but this was part of the discovery process. Plotting the shortest course among the 9 towns listed in the instructions was interesting. One of our course choices was suddenly changed (we had missed a route number) but in going onto the next checkpoint, we found that the one we had missed was actually in a better position to reach due to the change we had made.
Well, as we approached the 5th checkpoint it began to look as if we were not going to make them all. By the sixth checkpoint the fateful decision was made to turn home. I left Kirk a message on his cell phone and, sadly, home we went. We would have liked to finish but as Woody Allen says “showing up is half the battle”! It was a good rally, thanks Kirk!
The summer (and the rally season) is young and Susan and I will be back. When is that next rally???????
|
