What a way to close out a milestone year for the Cooler Crew! Coincidence or not, after a slew of red herrings from the clue writer, we ended up digging back in the birthplace of the Crew -- well, the in-person birthplace of the Crew anyway -- Cherokee Heights Park. Of course things have changed since those early days. After two weeks out in the frozen tundra, we've decided to wimp out for the rehash, and nowdays have it indoors, typically in the shelter at Newell Park, and this year was no different.
Just as with the Predig, we met a lot of new friends, and welcomed back some old ones. After a years-long hiatus, KT returned and assumed co-MC responsibilities with Redbear. Those two just make a great comedic team when it comes to justifying which door prizes go to which winner. This year's door prizes were rounded out with plenty of PP swag, rightfully "acquired" from the press conference and winner's party at Gabe's (and from the Vulcan Victory Dance the night before), along with the requisite clue-related prizes: a copy of Joel Barker's Paradigm book, plenty of Vinyl from the band "Head East" and Bing Crosby, and DVDs of the "movie" Mashed Rice, er, Archimedes, and crazy food items like Yellow Mashed Rice, Morton Salt, and Little Debbie Honey Buns.
Since, of course, this Crew knows how to eat, and no Rehash would be complete without a smorgasbord of yummy food, there was also a healthy dose of clue-related food, all of which was served at the aptly-named "Generally East Buffet". Red herring abounded, from actual picked herrign with red food color added, to Swedish-"herring" infused red Jell-O cups, "bluff"alo wings, Jumble-aya, "Barked Fences", and Me2's, Jake's, and BFG's "I'll eat my right nut" meatballs and "I'll drink my own pee" Lemon bars (you had to be on Facebook to understand where that came from). Let's not forget the absolutely beautiful cake Blackmamba decorated to look like the part of Cherokee Park the medallion was discovered in.
As has been customary, the finders joined us, a really sweet couple those two are, and were presented the annual Golden Pick award, and Cluey handed out the prizes to the winners of the Park Pick Pool, Redbear and the combination of Jake and Leelabell (whose prize was accepted on their behalf by Art Vandelay).
All in all, it was a great close to a decade and a half of the Cooler Crew, and a week and a half of hunting on the tundra. We're looking forward to an even better second fifteen years, and lots more weeks and a half worth of hunts. But if you really haven't got enough of a hunting fix, stay tuned for AW's mock hunt which will be starting just around the corner!
