Last weekend I participated in the Denver Questival. It is a 24 hour event where you assemble a team of up to 6 people and then try to accomplish as many challenges as possible in categories of: DO GOOD, OUTDOOR ADVENTURE, TREASURE HUNT, QUIRKY, COMMUNITY AND CULTURAL, FITNESS AND WELLNESS, AND LAUNCH EVENTS.
The LLama is the Questival and sponsor Cotopaxi mascot, so in honor of one of our groups favorite audio books, we named our team Ready Llama One (parody from the Ready Player One book – a great listen if you do audio books)
Each team gets one flag that must be in every photo or video that shows completion of any of the challenges. The one flag keeps the group together and eliminating the splitting up to accomplish more. The completed challenges are then uploaded onto the Questival system for other teams and viewers to either like, laugh at, or admire. Teams get points for the votes. Each flag had the word DO GOOD on it and thus was in every photo of every team posted.
It was perfect, as at the root of all the challenges, I felt it involved doing good either for yourself or others. Oh, not in a totally obvious way, but just the silliness, comaraderie, copious amounts of laughter that cannot help but spill out and infect those nearby.
In fact, one of the challenges in the DO GOOD category was make a stranger laugh. I’m not sure we ever caught that one on camera or video, but I can assure you it happened.
A new challenge for me in the Outdoor Adventure category was to make brownies over a fire in an orange. I had some very large navel oranges needing used on my counter, so we took those and completed that challenge. Very yummy (and most of you know I am not a chocolate person), the oranges gave the brownies an orange essence to them and they cooked perfectly in the fire built using only flint as another challenge.
The Treasure Hunt category included finding and taking team photos at various spots throughout the city. It was good to revisit some spots that I have not set eyes upon for a while.
The Quirky category was our most accomplished list of challenges. We did a higher percentage of this category than any others. Below are a few examples
QUIRKY
With a blindfold on and headphones in, sing and dance your heart out in a public
but safe place. Don’t dance in the middle of traffic. Jen did this in City park singing L.O.V.E (L is for the way you look at me…) and rocked it.
As a team hold a wall-supported/or not-wall-supported handstand contest as long
as you can. – With my back against the wall, it was the wrong angle for my arms and shoulders and my arms buckled and pile drove my head into the concrete. I re positioned facing the wall and managed much better- I’ll leave that challenge to just the guys next time.
Allow a stranger to throw a healthy handful of flour in your face. #closeyoureyes (we kept forgetting the bag of flour, so didn’t do this one although we saw flour on the sidewalks of Denver a few times, so know others did)
Get a stranger to crack a raw egg on your forehead and then empty the contents
in a teammates mouth – Yep, we did it. I was the forehead portion (with only thoughts that it would smash open and be all over my face) and Beth took the mouthful (and then quickly spat it out). Gross I know, but really funny and a great reminder that those things that you never pictured yourself doing, once done, don’t have any power to scare you anymore.
Those were just a few, but my favorite was:
#andtheoscargoesto #behumane
Click on the link below for the video.
In the Community and Cultural list, my favorite was probably the Hug a Picea Pungens – I’ll admit that we had to google to find out it was a Blue Spruce Tree, but we did a group hug around one.
In the Fitness and Wellness Category, one challenge was: Find a Razor scooter, and shoot a 15 second demo video trying to get sponsored. – Sydney starred in this one and well, next time I guess I will have to send everyone links so they can see just how creative this team can be.
In total, we accomplished 75 of 205 possible challenges. What a great time and awesome reminder to get together with those you love, be creative, be silly, go out and see stuff and interact with your environment.
