Looking for Fun in All the Right Places : The county becomes a giant playground for a trio of adventurers who pedal, paint and skate their way through a summer day.

All is chaos. Music thrums, smoke wafts and a sea of Lilliputian commandos ebbs and flows from behind walls, zapping the enemy with mock lasers--silent, pencil-thin beams lacing the darkness with red latticework.

Moments before turning into blood-thirsty warriors, these youngsters--along with a few of us adults--were in a “briefing room” at Lazerstar, the hot action spot just off the Ventura Freeway in Oxnard.

Erik Hanstad had been looking forward to this outing ever since he and Roberta Ayala, both 13, helped me concoct a simple plan: To honor summer, we would crisscross the county on a Fun Fest. In a single day, we would take a bicycle surrey ride, play laser tag, paint, ice skate and see exotic animals--thereby blazing the path for kids looking for adventure during the summer vacation.

Back at the Lazerstar briefing room, an attendant explained the basics of laser tag: two 18-member teams, red and green; no running; no contact; no lying down on the Lasertron battlefield; each team tries to score as many points as possible by stalking through a 6,000-square-foot maze and blasting opponents into the next galaxy.

Erik was sure that shooting our way through Lazerstar would be the highlight of the day. But as with any adventure, there were surprises along the way.

The first occurred less than five minutes into our 20-minute laser tag session. In the smoky darkness, a form reared up in front of me. I laid waste to the offender.

“You idiot!” screamed Erik who, along with being honest, was also on my team.

*

In his defense, Erik may have had reason to be grumpy. We started our day at 8 a.m. by renting a bicycle surrey at Beach Bike Rental at the Mandalay Beach Resort in Oxnard.

Roberta slid immediately behind the steering wheel. From the get go, she proved an exciting driver. She wove along the bike path paralleling the beach. She ignored curbs. She sliced off into the grass.

This was the first time Erik, an eighth-grader-to-be at Ojai’s Matilija Junior High, had met Roberta, who will be a ninth-grader at Ventura High. The relationship was off to a bumpy start.

Taking a moment away from frantically jerking at the hand brake, Erik spoke.

“Three years until you’re actually driving,” he said, rolling his eyes.

Roberta paid no attention. Apparently, the ability to turn a deaf ear to male whining is highly developed at an early age.

*

In figuring our itinerary, I thought it important to include a mix of physical and cerebral pursuits. This would allow for a well-rounded experience. It would also give me a chance to rest. But I was worried about how Erik and Roberta would react to the Paint Pals Clubhouse in Simi Valley.

Paint Pals had been recommended by a friend who took her young children there regularly. There were lots of things to do, she had said. The kids could pose in the “shadow room,” where a flashing light outlined their dark imprint on a transparent wall. They could sing “Old McDonald” accompanied by a karaoke machine, wander in a maze or paint a plaster statue.

Age 13 being on the cusp between childhood and revolt, I thought Paint Pals might be too childish.

Roberta loved it immediately. She surveyed the shelves of plaster statues waiting to be painted.

“Ohhhhhhh,” she said. “They have doodads here.”

It at first appeared that Erik might actually bolt for the door. Instead he mumbled and snatched a plaster cow off the shelf.

“My grandfather’s like a cow freak,” Erik said. “I can give it to him when we visit him in Chicago this summer.”

Roberta chose a statue of five leaping dolphins. For the next 30 minutes, she and Erik worked quietly at a table lined with squeeze bottles of paint. Squirting the paint into small containers, they meticulously applied it to their statues with a fine-tip brush. Occasionally, they looked up to examine each other’s progress.

“Dolphins aren’t purple,” he said.

“Cows don’t look like that,” she said.

“Shut up,” he said.

*

For both Erik and Roberta, our fourth stop was the biggest hit of the day, though neither one of them would have predicted it. Erik was sure that ice skating wouldn’t hold a candle to Lazerstar. And Roberta was just plain scared to get on the ice.

“I don’t want to,” she said when we arrived for the afternoon session at the indoor Easy Street Arena in Simi Valley.

As it turned out, Roberta had nothing to fear. In 15 minutes, she was skating backward, flushed cheeks balanced at the ends of a million-dollar smile. Erik also took to the ice easily, zipping casually around the oval.

As for me, I pitched on to my stomach and slid to a stop in front of Erik’s ankles. He looked down.

“That was great,” he said. “You looked like a seal.”

Erik and Roberta skated for 30 minutes. Under different circumstances, they would have skated longer. But, on the go now for seven hours, they were tiring. Plus, we had a final stop ahead of us.

*

We raced out of the rink and headed for Moorpark College and the small zoo used for the Exotic Animal Training and Management Program. By now, my companions were fast losing steam. In fact, Erik wasn’t feeling well. When we arrived at the zoo, he stayed in the car. Summer livin’ isn’t always easy.

We missed the carnivore feeding by 10 minutes. In retrospect this was not a bad thing. Standing in Dutch-oven heat, watching lions and hyenas gobble up chicken necks, beef heart and gobs of processed horse meat wouldn’t have made us feel any better. Roberta, however, loved watching the animals. She gawked at Bengal tigers and camels and considered turning a turkey vulture loose.

On the ride home, Erik was feeling better. It was also clear that a bond of sorts was forming.

“I like Metallica,” said Roberta.

“Cool,” said Erik. “Metallica’s rad.”

When we arrived home, Erik nodded to Roberta.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “Maybe I’ll be seeing you at Lazerstar.”