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Boomer welcomes you to the Quest!EMR paintball Park
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The "Quest" story begins at Skyball '99, where I harassed Mike "Blue" Hanse to death. I asked if I could be the Bunny. He said no, citing that he already HAD someone playing the killer Rabbit. But, I told him about Boomer, and he relented. (Mostly to get me off his back, I think...)
The guilty party this time was a full load. Me, my fiancee Mary, her kids Jeff and Emily, and Em's fiancee Kevin. (We refer to the two of them as "Kemily") I had packed gear for 7, knowing that someone would forget something. And, I was right. But, more on that as we go along.
So in June we made the trip up. It's a longer road-trip than I remembered, but at least I got to sit in the back for a little while and just ride. We anticipated the trip to be 12 hours. What we didn't anticipate was a shredded tire on the van, more delays than a filibuster, and cranky riders. (Next time, we slot out 3 days driving...) We arrived at the field at 6 AM, barely finding it hidden in the hills.
So, imagine this scene. It's just starting to get light out, 5 people who've been on the road for 10 hours too long roll into the area, find the house we're supposed to be in, and there's not a bed to be found in it. Well, there's two. With some growling and snarling, three people declare "I'm sleeping here.", and Em and myself brave into the player hut.
I manage to get a little sleep, about an hour or so, before people start milling about waking me up. At least they're friendly people, and a few actually said "Keep it easy, he needs to sleep." Cool. But Charley's voice woke me up for good. Charley who? Holton. There's worse people to wake up near, and I think Charley has woken up next to all of them.
Anyhow, after making a groggy wakeup, and foraging for something to drink other than coffee I managed to hit my second wind. Good thing too, I needed it. The folks in the van woke up too, feeling as miserable as I did. But we tried to remain chipper as we walked around in a haze.
I don't remember a lot before I got my shades on and my contacts in (in reverse order...) but I ran into a lot of people. sabre, sabrette, Bartman... (Too many Canadians... how do they get into the country?) The Iron Maidens, The Hanse clan... Lots of people. We got a case of Diablo and loaded up stuff.
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Mike Hanse and Boomer |
Mike over at Goggle Skinz came through for me, and got me a set of "Boomer Eyez" for the event. No notice, and he came through. I installed them that morning in a haze, and loaded up my tubes. My plan was to go Stock Gun, figuring what else would an invincible bunny need?
Oh, right, the game. I forgot to tell you who I was. "Boomer, the misunderstood bunny", cousin of "The Killer White Rabbit". We were both, following the movie, invincible to normal means of attack. To kill us, you had to hit us with a "Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch" The game was based loosely on Monty Pythons "Holy Grail". So there was the bridge with 3 questions, Castle AAAAAAARgh!, Castle Anthrax....
And us
rabbits.
**ahem** Ok, enough of that. We did some photos, got out to our start point, and I talked with my brother, the "White Rabbit". I got his name, and forgot it because of exhaustion. I'll update the page when I remember it. But I said to him "I want to see the rest of the field." He said "Okay." and we went exploring.
We ended up hanging out at "Castle Anthrax". Why? Well, the Iron Maidens are a good reason just there. That and they needed our help defending it. So, we had our fun for the better part of an hour. They were under a heavy push from the yellow team. So, I took the right and the White Rabbit took the left. We met in the middle after wiping people out big time. We'd let some run away, and hunt some down mercilessly. One kid I literally walked up on, tapped him on the shoulder and yelled "BANG!" He jumped out of his JT jersey!
Actually, that became our private game, to see who we could walk up on. One guy attacking the castle was so fixed on his target he missed me walking up behind him. So I tapped him on the shoulder and said "Excuse me?" He turned around to the business end of a Phantom. "Hi. I'm a killer blue bunny, and I've been authorized to ask you to surrender, or shoot you. Which would you prefer?" He said "Umm, I surrender?" "Good answer!" I said.
Well, I had to give up the Phantom after short order. Why? All my tubes of paint got broken, shattered, or otherwise ruined. 10 round tubes weren't cutting it, so I swapped guns with Kevin, who stole one from Emmie, who got one from Jeff. And I was going to use the Viper for a while.
| Now, exhaustion from road tripping plus exhaustion
from heat is a bad combo. I stole all sorts of water from
the "Knights who say NEE" people, who were very
gracious. I needed to take a nap, so I laid down to do
this. Mary kept waking me up, concerned I was hitting
heat stroke. In retrospect, I don't blame her. But at the
time I kept on complaining saying "I just want to
take a nap... that's all..." It later dawned on me
that I was exhausted because I hadn't eaten anything
since Indiana. (Duh...) Well, walking around with the Viper was very rewarding. For starters, I could shoot more paint. But I got the best longball shots too! The classic was one guy who was taunting me from easily 250 feet or more away. I said to the White Rabbit "Just one shot. Lemme see if I can worry him." And I took one from the hip, arced it perfectly and tagged him just over his harness. "Chicks dig the longball." I managed to walk around by the Castle AAAAgrh, and got taken out by someone who held the grenade in his hand to pop it on me. I protested, but figured "What the hell" and walked off with the guy. His reward? 500 points for his team and a Raven jersey. Word of this got out, and EMR ran out of Raven jerseys! I took the opportunity to get more water, actually EAT something, and move on with life. I was soaked in sweat, already, and breaks were a good thing. |
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The other thing of note that happened was one of the things I planned to do. At one point both teams yelled "RABBITS! HELP US!!!" and I went into my schitck. I stood in the center of a road and yelled for a "representative" of both teams to come forward. They did, hesitantly. But they remained under cover in case this was a trap.
"Ok, both teams have asked for the Rabbit's help. Since we can't help both, we're for hire. Opening bid to bribe the bunny starts at 1 paintball."
The bidding went, literally, like this.
Yellow team : 1 paintball
Red team : 5 paintballs
Yellow team : (female voice) "I'll show you my tattoo!"
Red team : "We can't beat that. You got it."
And I promptly got taken out by a Yellow team guy with a HHGOA. Ironically, it was the husband of the woman who offered to show me her tattoo. He didn't hear what we were doing, but heard "Rabbits" and had a HHGOA. And there's another 500 points and a jersey.
And, yes, I *DID* in fact get to see her tattoo on the field. Nice ink. That's all I'm gonna say.
One other thing happened too. At the end of the day someone lit me up hard. There was talk all day of shooting the rabbits, but this was out of control and frankly over the line. So I chased them. (As a side note, they heard me screaming at these guys IN THE STAGING AREA from DEEP IN THE FIELD. I was mad.) As I gave chase, I fell down a 15 foot rocky drop landing on my left knee. The energy jammed up into my hips, and locked my vertebra in the lower lumbar region so badly that I could barely walk when the adrenaline wore out. If it weren't for the Redz pads I would have easily broken my knee on the landing. As it was, I had a chiropractor take some X-rays and do some coarse adjustments. As I type, I'm still in pain.
Anyhow, a successful outing for Boomer and friends. Will Boomer be there for Quest 2000? Who knows? If we are, I'm planning on a longer road trip out. The map estimates were REALLY wrong.
Oh, one final note. On our way back to Minnesota we made a detour. A slight one, really. Buffalo, New York. Why? Niagara Falls. Mary wanted to see the falls. So, we did. And the falls are a romantic spot, and romantic spots demand a romantic interlude. How romantic? Only one way to find out... (Click here)
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The roadtrip crew : Left to right |
For more info on the Quest, and other games at EMR paintball park, visit their web page at http://www.emrpaintball.com/ or call them at 570-465-9622. Remember, "A.N.T."!
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