Remember way back in 2012 when I received the mysterious box from Columbia Sportswear, informing me that I was a part of their inaugural OmniTen?
{I can barely remember that far too.}
Since then, my journey with Columbia has been a whirlwind! First, we went to Havasupai for the Season #1 trip. I jumped off waterfalls, hiked into canyons, and most importantly, met the man I will marry.
But the fun continued! Columbia announced the mysterious OmniGames this past January and all four seasons were flown to Park City to compete in this secret event with our randomly-chosen teammate. Caleb and I found buried avalanche beacons, built bomb-proof snow shelters, competed on a high ropes course, zipped down ski runs and built a blazing fire in the middle of a blizzard. Not only were we having a blast, but we competed too: the top 5 teams won a trip to the Kingdom of Jordan!
After it was all said and done, Caleb and I finished in second place, securing our spot on the trip to Jordan in April. Words can’t even express how excited I was before the trip and how thankful I am today. Jordan was not on my radar before, but I am beyond fortunate to have experienced such a fantastic country.
But wait…I’m not done yet! Before heading to Jordan, we discovered that Columbia would be making a documentary of the trip. No, they weren’t talking some low-budget, two-minute clip that would be finished the following week. Instead, they hired a producer who brought his own film crew to make a legit, one-hour documentary!
It took some adjusting on my part, but Pedro and his team followed us around Jordan, capturing random moments on camera. The pulled us aside for impromptu interviews and always managed to be there when I did something incredibly stupid! In hindsight, I wish I was more eloquent on film but I was so enamored with the surrounding environment that I could barely string together coherent sentences. And who could blame me?!
Good thing we had Casey along! He works in Hollywood and is way more accustomed to this film thing than I am! I want to be like him when I grow up!
All of this buildup is to tell you about my adventure last week: Columbia flew the ten of us out to Portland, Oregon, the location of Columbia HQ. It was a crazy quick trip—I flew in on Wednesday morning and returned via a 6am flight on Friday—but so worth it. True to form, we all packed in as much as we could on the agenda. We hiked a beautiful 6 miles on the Oregon coast {I’ll share those photos next week!} and explored Cannon Beach, but more importantly, we had front-row seats to the premiere of I Am #OmniTen!
Y’all, I can’t even tell you how weird it was to see my face on the screen! {Side note: I should really be better about cutting my hair!} I do a fair number of gear reviews but that’s entirely different. Seeing all of the film snippets pieced together made me smile, groan and laugh all at the same time. In fact, it actually made me remember events that I had completely forgotten!
I wish I could say that I had a link to the film to show y’all…but alas, I do not. On the bright side, Columbia is releasing it online near the end of the month, so when it’s available, I will definitely let you know! You know, so you can carve an hour into your Friday night to sit down and laugh at me….!
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