2003

I was 13 and as a recent Rangely Colorado transplant was nudged into a club by my guiding adults. Destination Imagination, formerly Odyssey of the Mind was a creative problem solving think outside the box kind of club that was global.

My team , after much conflict and members threatening to drop out, long nights blasting rammstein in my friends garage while we hacked away at our respective projects and 3 successful competitions , we achieved an invitation to the global competition in Knoxville Tennessee.

We raised the money to get there to perform our skit. In the Alice in Wonderland based show we put together a few of my peers engineered a machine guide for our Alice as she travelled to the Berlin Wall, Neuschwanstein Castle, Big Ben Clocktower, and the Golden Gate bridge to conquer the challenge presented by myself the mad scientist. I was also in charge set design and had to conquer my anxiety to sing Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall pt 3 a few times.
While in Knoxville we were all given a series of custom pins to go forth and trade with our various peers from different states and countries. Unfortunately China was under quarantine with its Sars outbreak so they were not present for the exchange or ceremonies parade, but the Thai , Japanese , and Korean teams I met were so sweet and eager to exchange pins, I also got a few from new york and various other states. Some of which I gave as favors to friends back home who helped us.

What a trip. We were set up in college dorms and given free range to explore. Our team ranked 24th or so out of 50. I might be wrong on that I just was proud we were somewhere in the middle, if felt like proof of effort.

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