Things to Do in Meridian

Dart Zone's indoor and outdoor arenas hold sweeping tag battles carried out with Nerf blasters and darts––a safe alternative to airsoft or paintball. Inside, an industrial labyrinth of orange and yellow barriers and partitions serve as bunkers and trenches against foam darts. The barriers are riddled with peepholes to allow stealthy shooting and treasonous thumbs-up signals. Since the arsenal of revolver-style blasters on hand fires foam ammunition, games can bruise only egos, not bodies, and clear goggles provided at the facility protect eyes. In warmer weather, battles shift outside onto tactical grass fields under the sun's capricious supervision.

TQ Speedway & Hobbies' warehouse hobby shop is infused with the earthy smell of a 5,000-square-foot miniature off-road racetrack, its intricate curves and jumps constructed from clay and topsoil. Remote-controlled trucks vault over gaps and skid around corners as their operators and grandstands full of action figures cheer on. More than 40 pit stations give visitors ample space to set up their 1/10th-scale rides for the day's races, and an AMB timing system allows racers to accurately track their lap times.

Boise Nationals Soccer Club helps develop young soccer players from their first step onto the pitch to their first step onto a college campus. Formed exclusively for boys in 1986, the club has since merged with several girls' affiliates to create one of the state's most formidable coed soccer outfits. Today, 30 competitive teams play beneath its star-emblazoned logo.

The club's programs split player development into six categories, and its youth soccer league—formed in 2008—places pint-size dribblers under the guidance of professional coaches, who provide more in-depth instruction than the volunteer parents or scarecrows that supervise many other recreational sports teams. For players who blossom under the club's stewardship, college-placement programs are available to help hoist games to the next level.

As a lineup of second-run movies splashes upon the two screens of Northern Lights Cinema Grill, waiters deliver a diverse menu of pizzas, burgers, and salads to audience members comfortably lounging around tables. Customers arrive at the theater 30 minutes before the beginning of their chosen show to purchase drinks and place food orders before the lights dim and the night wolves come out. Waiters deliver orders during the show, and can delay the delivery of desserts or other food items at customers’ request. The theater’s matinee showings welcome guests of all ages, while shows after 6:15 p.m. are for patrons 21 and older due to their wine and beer service and dress code of clothes from 1991 or earlier.

Silverhawk Aviation’s owner, Catherine Rad Weber, built a school not only to teach people how to fly, but to learn to love their wings as well. Her comprehensive curriculum challenges students to fly at high altitudes, in different weather conditions, and over diverse terrain, training helicopter pilots who will be comfortable in the cockpit anywhere in the world. The program includes hands-on experience in caring for the rides, moving them in and out of hangars, and safely washing them without getting soap in their eyes.

Whether training or touring, visitors receive eyefuls of southern Idaho’s diverse geological features. The helicopters surmount rugged mountains, speed over mesas and high deserts, and ride air currents above rivers that wend their way into deep canyons. Apart from stunning the brain’s beauty receptors, this splendor provides a natural obstacle course against which more experienced pilots test their skill, zipping around rock spires or hopping the feet of their craft neatly through pristine fields of tire plants.

At Shankz Glo-Par-Tee, larger-than-life dinosaurs, sea creatures, and volcanoes glow under black lights as guests play through 18 holes of miniature golf in the 6,000-square-foot facility. It can take about 30–40 minutes for players aged 3 and older to travel through the course’s glowing jungles, underwater worlds, and prehistoric locales, and even longer when they’re sporting Shankz’s ChromaDepth 3-D glasses, which inhibit the wearers’ ability to perceive the fourth dimension. In addition to mini golf, Shankz Glo-Par-Tee features a glowing arcade and themed party rooms where patrons can host birthday parties or private events.