[at-l] GA RUCK

[thornel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (W F Thorneloe)]

Thank you to all who helped to make the GA RUCK as success this year,
especially those who collected the activity fees and punched cards to help
others gather their Continuing Hiking Education Credits. Everyone enjoyed
the activities, such as Identification of Ancient Earth Satellites. It was
fully illuminated by the central star of our Solar System, making this a
pretty simple task for over 65% of our participants. I missed most of the
activities Saturday, but understand the multimedia extravaganzas were
fascinating.

Special thanks to Chainsaw for help with organization and publicity. Sunny
and Frank for similar work and aid with keeping RUCK Central somewhat
organized. Hummingbird and others for publicity via the Women's Hiking
list. KellyGoVols for giving certain list vandals a target for their
aggression (hope those tires were cheap). Spur for providing a great
example of how quickly food, fluids and warmth resuscitate chilled hikers.
God for excellent weather to challenge every hiker and driver. Park
Security for keeping the blue lights going to help lead others to RUCK
Central.

Unless we hear a great wave of support for another plan, GA RUCK will move
from Amicolola Falls Park next year. While we showed up as others canceled,
we weren't offered appropriate housing and parking access. Displays of
tenting and hammocks had to be removed as the park police expected an
ecological disaster from tree huggers and other safe means of hammock
attachments. At least Officer Barney kept his bullet in his shirt pocket.

Choices proposed include Camp Thornwell (no relation) in extreme NW SC,
well north of Clemson but pretty darned close to Brevard and 3 short miles
from NC. Other options are welcomed for discussion, as GA RUCK Czar-ship
will need to be passed on to less time stressed fans. Goose Creek was
inviting for our first year, but appears too small for the size of crowd
that showed up for this year's snow RUCK. We want to keep it close to FLA
hikers, with the SC site about 2-3 hours north of downtown ATL, and
probably similarly distant for those along the I-95/I-26 corridor.

I'd appreciate if someone would forward of copy of this to the Women's
Yahoo group. I greatly appreciate the humor and sportsmanship of Bumpkin,
our sole Tuckerization Candidate. As has been our custom, she won the free
llama packing and guide through the Smokies. We'll let her know when the
permit goes through.

OrangeBug