We attended the parachute drop today and watched hundreds of 12" Crimson Guarda descend from the sky down upon us. It was pretty sweet. We were led out of the convention hall and taken behind the hotel where they had streets blocked off for us. After a bit of waiting (the wind made closing a third street a good idea), a 12" scale Mercury Capsule was dropped. It cascaded down the building and landed in the street with a crash while the Hasbro employees kept everyone back. Then a count down begun and the Guards were flung over the edge. They filled the sky. There were some Adventure Team crates peppered in with the 12" Crimson Guards. They had special red & yellow parachutes. The whole thing only took a few minutes, but a few straggling Guards kept folks going for quite awhile.

Six of the Guards didn't make it to the ground. Five got hung up on the high branches of a tree. It was amusing to watch people try to climb the tree (and be cheered on by a gathered crowd), only to give up half way. It was for the best, though, there was no way the upper branches could have held them. One intrepid paratrooper got snagged on the side of the building! He hung there for a few minutes until a gust of wind finally brought him to an inaccessible part of the hotel's roof. Hours later, he had mysteriously disappeared....