Party March 8th

[Jennifer]

magicwalt, count me in. That time schedule is perfect for me. I'm looking forward to meeting you and many others on this board. Wish I could meet some of the other moderators, but I guess they are too busy. I'll bring my famous artichoke dip (and maybe a few Coronas - shhhh). See you tomorrow..

[Ellen]

Howdy Jim

If you weren't so busy with planning your wedding, I'd say you have too much time on your hands

If you ever need a second career, consider stand-up comedy or writing funny cards for Hallmark

I need to expand the article to use some of your recommendations as subtitles. One of my favorites from the previous list: "She'll be crawling round the mountain when she comes."

Thanks again for the healing humor -- hope to see you at the next party.

Miles of smiles,
Ellen

[Cy Kaicener]

Anyone that missed the party missed some excellent cuisine and some great stories and chat. Ellen looks a lot better than I thought I would find.
I hope more people came after their hikes.

[Jennifer]

Ellen, I wanted to meet you so badly at the party, but I was elected to "Volunteer" to take a group of Girl Scouts on a hiking trip along the Palos Verdes coastline this mornng.

I told them about your story of survival. It made them listen to what I was teaching them after that for the next 2 hours.

Thanks Ellen for your inspiration. Hope to finally meet you at your next party that Cynthia is throwing (Hint Hint - If I'm invited). Would love to meet Kathy W there also.

Jennifer

[HikeUp]

Reminds me of the song by Mike Doughty: "27 Jennifers"

moderator: delete this if necessary

[KathyW]

I'm glad the party turned out great - I'm sorry I couldn't get my hike in and also attend the party - hard to do two things at once though.

[Hikin_Jim]

Remember when I said that I couldn't come because we were meeting with the pastor? The pastor cancelled on us at the last minute because his daughter was sick. We rescheduled for ... today (Sunday), the day he said he was unavailable. Doh! Gotta love life.

We made good use of the time and selected our wedding bands.

QUESTION 1: How can you often tell a serious hiker/backpacker? He/she springs for expensive titanium gear.

QUESTION 2: How can you tell a hopelessly over the top hiker/backpacker? He gets a titanium wedding band.

Sign me: "Hopelessly over the top Hikin' Jim"

[cynthia23]

HJ: I loved Deep Purple: The Knees of Ellen Coleman, the best. Let's Crawl Y'All was a close second. Very funny stuff ... and I also loved Zip's story of the friend (?!) who suggested a dash for the Mexican border on his wedding day. Speaking both as a writer, and as someone who's actually been plagiarized ... I fully intend to steal both of your jokes. You have been warned.

The barbecue was a great success. MW's q was the best. It was great to see Ellen and meet some new faces. Yes, we must do this again, and soon ....

[Jennifer]

Since I missed the party, I'm just curious to see who was able to make it as compared to MW's final list before the party.

[Marknhj]

Wanted to let you guys know that I thoroughly enjoyed meeting you all yesterday afternoon. It was fun to put faces to names I was familiar with through lurking here for months prior to registering!

Hearing Ellen's story first-hand was, in the lexicon of my country of origin, gobsmacking; Walt's bbq was delicious (and provided further nutrition for sometime afterwards in extracting pulled pork from my teeth); I ate Cynthia's brownies for breakfast.

Ran into, albeit not literally, although he was actually running, Perry on the way down from a late evening hike on the South Lykken (sp?) trail with Cynthia. I hadn't been on that trail before and it was wonderful.

I look forward to meeting you all again soon. Oh, apologies for the lack of a red carnation. There must have been a run on them at the local florists