I encountered something odd that maybe someone here will be able to explain.
About a month ago, I drove to the trailhead of a couple of natural-surface trails in Rock Creek National Park at the DC/Maryland border. I was getting out of the car and getting ready for my run and there was a man who was yelling a name into the woods. I figured he was calling a dog or maybe a child. I also thought I saw him holding a water bottle.
Well, after a moment, I realized he wasn't holding a water bottle - it was a brass bugle. He kept yelling out to someone, and then before I could ask him what he was doing with a bugle, he got a response from someone out on the trail. He called back, and then sprayed an X on the ground with "spray chalk" - I don't know if that's a real thing, but that's what it looked like. Then he blew a call on the bugle and started running down the trail.
I was going on a different trail, but I could hear him calling on the bugle several more times before I got out of earshot. I think that he and his "troops" (?) came from the trail I was going on, because there were occasional spray-chalk arrows and marks.
I have no idea if this was some sort of race or what. Does anyone know? Searching for the terms "race" + "bugle" doesn't get much of anything, LOL. I also couldn't find any events for Rock Creek on that date - it was a Saturday afternoon, and that's an unlikely day/time to get a permit from the park for an event like that. It was all pretty strange.