Crowd: About 93 brave souls.
Remember that old Noel Coward song about how "Only mad dogs & Englishmen go out in the noonday sun"?
Not even mad dogs were seen last Saturday.
Bit of a joke. Weather wasn't that bad - 90ish - sunny, big puffy Florida clouds most of the day. Big huge Florida thunderstorms looming over us to the west all day long, with lightning striking out near Wickham road at one time, but not a drop on us all day. Sea breezes kept everything inland so we could enjoy ourselves. OK, it might have been a little refreshing to get rained on.
But we did enjoy ourselves.
I'm waiting to read here (on Yahoo) of the adventures of some of the folks who attended. I think we would have heard lots of stories as they came off the course but most seemed tired, out of breath, and didn't talk much. This was challenging stuff, what with the maze of trails to contend with, the heat and humidity, the sometimes deep standing water and a classic array of controls that presented no obvious "best" route. Score-O is a form of the old traveling-salesman problem that asks the question: How do we visit a maximum number of widely dispersed places in a fixed amount of time? And Score-O adds the element of having some controls worth more points than others.
At the start of the day Event Director/Course Setter Joe Maliszewski was just about chuckling himself silly with anticipation, having spread 33 controls all over the park, knowing full well no-one could find them all in the usual 90 minutes of Score-O. So he allowed a separate category of 3 hours. If you tried it, you know what moving around for 3 hours in the heat is like. If you weren't there it probably means you already knew what moving around for 3 hours in the heat would be like.
But even with 3 hours, no one got them all. I haven't seen the results yet, but I know several people came oh-so-close to a complete sweep. Myself, I decided to cheat. I waited til the end of the day, listening to all the scuttlebutt & rumors from everyone and then told Joe I'd retrieve for him, on the clock, at 3 P.M.
That worked OK...I guess. Joe said he'd give me a break and collect two nearby points for me, by way of handicap because, he casually mentioned, "it will take you some time to take all those controls down...."
Man oh man, did it ever take me some time to take them down. I discovered Joe knows knots. He's like this throwback sea-dog, using sailor knots that don't even have names, determined to tie controls to bushes so that they won't come off if God himself sends the mother of all hurricanes. And when I couldn't find one of the controls anyway, I'm thinking to myself, it's just as well, I won't have to UNTIE it!
Hyperbole aside, the layout of the 33 controls forced people to make a major decision early on about whether to attack the pattern clockwise or counterclockwise. In hindsight, I think counter was best. I figured out later that the optimum route would have been something like 9 km. That's bee-line route distance, not counting all the random running to & fro, looking for trails that don't go where they are supposed to anymore, or following trails that have grown since the map was made. Oh, the hazards of heavily used urban parks.
Time to re-do the map, folks. But of course we need to wait for the park to complete current crop of improvements.
We also need to remind ourselves next year to take steps to ensure no orienteers pass through the campground (campers do not like this and neither do rangers, it turns out) or through the horse barn/corrals/ring areas (again, the rangers made note of it). I'm sure we can operate that way, but it was a shame something had to happen to make them mention it to us and set a new rule. We did so well for so many years.
Some of you may not know that Wickham Park is home to the in-famous annual Matt Mahoney Marathon and Ultra Run held during May of each year. The Run uses FLO's map of the park and dares the physically sound, mentally unsound, among us to run 50 or 100 miles in the heat of a Florida summer day. Very amusing invitations by Matt are found at Entry and at Wickham Park Marathon. Check it out.
I saw quite a few very large gopher tortoises, but no scrub jays this time. Wildflowers seemed to be everywhere. I was disappointed to see very little water in some of the usual marshes, but I recall several folks were not. I only went knee deep once or twice through ditches.
Joe's son Matt helped out, as did the Pardy Party, plus Jonathan Linforth and Bev Ousley. If I've forgotten someone, I'll ask Joe M to add a note. Thanks to all, especially to Joe M himself for all the planning, pre-marked maps, setting all controls, and hanging around to be sure I came out of the woods alive.
A terrific challenge, a fun score event, enough spare time to sit around and talk and my knees are feeling pretty good 72 hours later. All in all, a Good Day!
Bob
| Name | Score |
| Paul Hodges | 65 |
| John Sherwin | 62 |
| Duayne Jenkins | 47 |
| Ace & Debbie Gottschack | 45 |
| Bryan Schultz | 40 |
| Davis Somers | 32 |
| Jack Bovah | 31 |
| Phillip Tasker | 29 |
| Aliscia Padrick & Jeff Misa | 28 |
| Walenty | 25 |
| Chris Birks | 24 |
| Jeff Hunker | 21 |
| Bev Ousley | 4 |
| Name | Score |
| Bob Putnam | 78 (Retrieved controls in 136 mins) |
| Andrea Holman | 69 |
| David Aarolson | 68 |
| Pardy Party | 65 |
| Mark Ryden | 65 |
| Karnema & Hood | 49 |
| Elaine & Elisha Bates | 44 |
| Richard Cale | 44 |
| Greg Poole | 44 |
| Dennis & Carolyne Clayburn | 41 |
| Susan Vicky, and Paul | 35 |
| Rick Holley | 33 |
| Toby & Clay | 33 |
| David Mahnken | 32 |
| Troop 524 Group 2 | 32 |
| Adam Handly | 31 |
| Chris Kavenagh & Emily Strawn | 30 |
| Sean Cuddihy | 26 |
| Dawn Thomas | 25 |
| Kevin Schmidt | 25 |
| Will Scoto | 23 |
| David Hatten | 23 |
| Lacey Richardson | 23 |
| Troop 524 Group 1 | 21 |
| Matt Sharkey | 20 |
| Troop 184 Group 5 | 18 |
| Don Smith | 16 |
| Debbie Walters | 15 |
| Guy Chabot | 14 |
| Sally Richardson | 12 |
| Laura Partynski | 11 |
| Derek "Spitwad" Bohn | OT (74) |
| OT | Over Time limit |