My son turned 9 on March 25th, and I decided to create a city-wide treasure hunt for him. I’m so proud of the whole thing, which took about a week to prepare. So, I made it into a blog post here to share with everyone. I know it’s not really art-related, but I did put a ton of creative energy into it.
So…on a sunny Saturday morning in March, four of Morgan’s friends came to our house. They were given Clue #1:
This led them to the Shammy Shine car wash down the street. The Shammy Shine guys were already in cahoots with me regarding this adventure. They cooperated with my weird desire to hide a clue under their gnome.
Clue #2 also came with a fragment of a treasure map. Hmmm… Land of Death? Western Wards?
The clue led to….
The Easton Area Public Library! 1.94 D was a call number to a book about the Bermuda Triangle.
Inside the pages of the book, they found… Clue #3!
Under the toy train in the library was a fourth clue. Here’s a picture of my son, Morgan, holding the clue.
And now, they already had 3 map pieces! The kids were excited!
This clue was really hard. Can you figure it out?
So… it led them to this wonderful place: Book and Puppet, a wonderful bookstore. My friend Nere works there, and she was part of the whole plan. She dressed up like a wizard and gave the boys a riddle:
There is a green house. Inside the green house is a white house. Inside the white house is a red house. Inside the red house there are a lot of babies. What is it?
They solved the riddle. (the answer is: a watermelon)
The next clue led them to…
The Carmelcorn shop!! Yay! Everyone got some candy and clue #6.
The opposite of Tame Yucky Things is… Goodies Gone Wild! This is a really awesome new shop in Easton, and the owner challenged the boys to eat strange things like pickle candy and dried up bugs, in order to get the next clue.
Also, earlier that week I had pre-bought some gross looking (but delicious) soda the day before, knowing the kids would be hot and thirsty by this stage of the treasure hunt. I was right!
Here is Jason drinking “Dog Drool.”
Hidden inside a fake tree in Goodies Gone Wild was clue #7:
This clue led to…. Delaware River Books, a really wonderful used book store near the Post Office. Carmen, the owner, gave the kids another riddle:
What is heavy going forward, but backwards it is not?
Do you know the answer?
After they solved the riddle, Carmen also gave each kid a “book buck,” which counts as money there, so each kid got a book. Plus, another map piece and clue #8.
Boys with books!
The “Giant’s gun” is the cannon near the river at Scott Park.
The slippery hill is the playground. Clue #9 was buried under the mulch beneath the slide.
(I had gone out and buried it there earlier that morning, around dawn!)
They were determined to find the clue!
Here it is!
Clue #9 leads to Riverside Park, near a statue of Columbus. The kids ran off down the path along the river towards Riverside Park and the final clue!
At last, they had all the map pieces!
The pieces fitted together like a puzzle.
The final piece led to… The Dungeon Below the Dragons!
T&H Auto, an auto services business, is the place filled with “Dragons.” (I used to pretend that cars and trucks were dragons, when my kids were little, so this makes sense.) Earlier, I had hidden the treasure box in the catacombs below the building.
Victorious Treasure Hunters returning home in Triumph!
Happy Birthday Morgan!!!!