Miniature Croquet

A friend of ours was turned 25 today. Knowing how traumatic it was for me, I knew we had to do something special. Luckily, I didn't have to do any of the planning. After eating some delicious Thai food (pumpkin curry -- it's my new favorite thing), we headed over to the Provo Beach Resort.

I've heard some mention of it, but didn't know exactly what it was. It's like, a Boondocks, only, instead of go-karts and miniature golf, they have a hot tub and surfing area, a place where you have to move stealthily through lasers like they do in the movies, high-wire ropes and the like, and miniature croquet (see the video above).

Miniature croquet probably doesn't sound like it is too complicated, but get the birthday boy, his brother, Megan and me together, and we had a hard time figuring it out. We spent the first 20 minutes on the first "section", and the attendant even had to come over and make sure we weren't confused (we were, but didn't want him to know it). It was OK though. I'm not certain I got the point system right, and I'm sure I gave the birthday boy more than he was supposed to get in the first round. But that's no big deal. After getting the hang of things, we breezed through the other areas. My ball only got stuck in the bonus area once. None of us effectively used the "poison" rule, though, and that might have changed things up  a bit if we had.

Miniature croquet laced with confusion and innuendo is just as fun an activity as anything else I've tried.

I don't know if it's a very "manly" sport. Between the mandatory rule of hitting the ball with the mallet swinging through your legs, and not being able to hit the ball clear across...anywhere, it lacks a lot of luster that original croquet brings to the game.

I really hope that everyone else had fun, because I enjoyed it. Five "sections" for $6 is probably an OK price, although, I'm glad that we had the area basically to ourselves. If we had felt rushed, it wouldn't have been nearly as worth it.

Happy 25th, Kade! (What state am I thinking of, now?)