The night before, we were supposed to stay in a tent at an RV campground near by...But once I checked the weather and saw that it was supposed to be 55 mph winds, I thought there had to be another way. The one and ONLY hotel/motel in this entire town or NEAR this town (small, very small) was $90 something a night...Eh, no thanks. I zoomed in on Google Maps to the Elma Paintball Field...
See Elma Paintball? ... And see due North of Elma Paintball?...Where it says Grays Harbor Hostel?
Yeah. We scored. Big time. $35/night and we had a decent bed, a kitchen, a shower and the nice hosts helped us set up their electric heater in our huge (and I mean, major confusion for a semi) truck to keep the paint warm all night. I showered (which I wouldn't have been able to do tent camping) and put together team registration packets at the nice table in the warm kitchen (we had the hostel to ourselves) while listening to music on the Mac...And smiled at the thought that I could've been putting these packets together by lantern light, in my tent in 55 mph wind gusts and rain pouring down. *Ahh* Life is good to me sometimes. :)
The next morning, we woke early at 5 am, made eggs and toast, packed up the truck again, hit the road by 5:59 and made it to the paintball field by 6:02. Yes. Life was on my side this weekend. :)
The tournament went very very well (the smoothest it's gone yet. We've had a total of *I think* 7 tournaments between last year and this.). It was rainy, but it was okay. I had my nice station set up under our glorious Planet Eclipse (paintball brand) tent with sides which we got sent to us for free since we, as West Coast Paintball Series, are now sponsored by them! I was celebrating. If not for this tent, I would've been sitting out in the rain all day long..(or probably would've retreated to a miserable 8 hours alone in the truck). Here's our set up:
Don't we look professional?! :)
Here's a couple of my fave's from the day:
