Triennial VIII: The Countdown Begins!
Well, I'm sitting here in deepest east Netherlands, on yet another of those many European vacation days (no wonder the Euro is worth about as much as monopoly money... they actually try to enjoy life rather than working till they drop). This one is sort of like Dutch and German Thanksgiving, being on a Thursday. The Dutch are all outdoors taking either bike or boat trips... I hope you realize that the Borg has already occupied Earth, more specifically the Netherlands... They have a saying, "Doe maar gewoon, dan doe je gek genoeg", meaning "just act normal, that's crazy enough", whereas in Ithaca we say "it's impossible to be too crazy"; just think of the Volvo Ballet, not to mention Joe Dabes. Also, "the tall tulip gets its head chopped off".
Anyway, I'm reminiscing about the first Triennial, twenty years ago as of June 7th, and fantasizing about the Hills of Home, more specifically the Finger Lakes Trail. Everything is in place for Triennial VIII (we number them like Super Bowls), most likely on the first weekend in May 2002. This article is for the FLRC newsletter, to get everyone excited and thinking about forming their teams. Of course you need an entire year's training to get ready. Will we see the Mighty Isis and Trail Hags of yore? No doubt that High Finger will be able to entice Joe Dabes out of Tompkins County Eldercare for the event. Bottom Feeders, Snuggle Bunnies, and a HHH team with some disgusting name are sure to be present. Herb Engman was described in a recent Ithaca Journal article as an "environmental activist", which means he spends three years patrolling the South Danby trail so he can win his leg every time. I see that Rick Cleary is waxing poetic, but is a sonnet about the Triennial really the right literary form? Maybe more a Kafkaesque dialog…. The FLT Conference has been busy in recent years, and there are some important trail changes, for example on the west end of the Connecticut Hill leg. So get out and check out the trails! Remember, the race is to the prepared.
My own training was somewhat interrupted by an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (no, not foot-in-mouth, that I have had since birth...) which closed the forests and nature areas here for about three months. All the orienteering meets were cancelled. I'm systematically running some long-distance footpaths in eastern Netherlands (the Twentepad) and the nearby areas of Westphalia and Lower Saxony in Germany (the Teutoburger Wald... you remember the opening scene of "Gladiator"?... that's where it really happened... a bit more civilised today). Europe has some real advantages over Ithaca in this regard, namely excellent public transport into most rural areas even on Sunday, and a highly-developed network of trails and bikepaths. However, compared to the FLT it is all very tame, so I visit Ithaca regularly to regain my trail legs on the Abbot Loop.
The official (and unofficial) Triennial web site is http://home.hetnet.nl/~fatcat/triennial.htm.
We would welcome any more recollections, photos, or outright lies.
From the flatlands of Enschede, the Netherlands…
-- D G "Dump Truck" Rossiter
| Prev Article | Front Page | Next Article |