Cool as Ice Up In Vermont

I was headed home from Maine when I decided to detour by way of northern Vermont. This trip certainly had some cool surprises…you might even say it was Cool as Ice!

My journey led me to pay a visit to Smugglers’ Notch Family Resort in Jeffersonville, VT.

They have a tremendous amount of activities and this looks like a place where you could really enjoy a getaway, but I was there specifically to check out Smugglers’ Fun Zone 2.0 where they feature a nicely designed laser tag arena operating with Zone Helios gear.

What was especially cool before I even got into a game was running into my friend Lynn’s soon-to-be brother-in-law completely unexpectedly. It turns out he had just taken a job here a few months ago, but I had no idea.

I had arrived during a quiet time and while I was waiting for a family group to finish their game, I sat out front knowing I would be doing a 1v1 with a staff member. That’s when Nate introduced himself and asked “do you know Lynn?” Lol, doesn’t everybody? :) He told me that when he heard there was “a lady with a blog” outside he just knew it must be me. It is astounding to me how many times random encounters like this happen when I am off on my tag trips. The laser tag community really is a small world. So Nate and I snapped a selfie to send to Lynn because she did not believe that we would actually end up playing tag together in Vermont simply by chance! So that was a cool surprise!

We may be only seven degrees from Kevin Bacon, but more often than not I’m only two degrees from someone who knows Lynn!

The other part that was cool and this site was the arena itself, a CW creation designed to look like you are tagging out on the ski slopes.

Nate told me this arena was added in 2017. At around 2700 square feet it was a nice space for the game I got to play against Nate and Julian. I count myself lucky that this timed out like it did because this was a much better opportunity to really enjoy playing the game the way I like to.

There are two raised platform “towers” to give a bit of height to parts of the arena.

Although we played a free-for-all game with bases turned off, I really liked seeing what they did with these ice cube themed base housings.

I also love that they tied the arena theme right back to the ski slopes at this mountain resort. It was clear that some creative thought went into the aesthetic and freshened up the look of some of the more familiar mainstay pieces.

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Smugglers’ Notch and the combination of a great game and surprise encounter are what made this a very cool experience!