Another Clue Hunt
Clue hunts are an Ellison family tradition. When the girls were growing up, we replaced the typical Easter egg hunt---colored eggs hidden around the yard---with more elaborate hunts. They might still involve finding hidden colored eggs, but perhaps the eggs would have clues inside that would lead the girls to the next egg and eventually to the hidden Easter baskets. Or sometimes, the girls would have to gather all of the hidden eggs---order would not matter---and combine the clues inside them at the end to find the hidden baskets. Or sometimes a combination of the two. The clue hunts would send them all around the house, all over the yard, and often beyond.
And clue hunts sometimes had very elaborate structures. We designed clue hunts so that each girl would have her own (individually-tailored) search, designated by different colored eggs for each, and they would need to combine answers to problems they had each solved into one final clue that would lead them to the baskets. We also designed them so that they would need to work collaboratively on one stage of the clue hunt and individually on another stage. And there were many other variations.
The clues sometimes involved answering trivia questions, reading maps, solving jigsaw puzzles, solving math problems, or using knowledge of history. I recall one with a linguistics theme, where the language skills of all three girls were used and there was some computational linguistics thrown in. Another had a sports theme. There were often logic puzzles or riddles of one kind or another.
The girls have, perhaps, outgrown our clue hunts now (and we are not typically all together on Easter), but we have continued the clue hunt tradition in various forms nonetheless. We will sometimes construct a clue hunt for our nephew Jack or for the children of friends of ours. We had an online clue hunt during COVID. We have, on occasion, inviting adult guests to take part in the clue hunts.
Six years ago in Paris, I invited Esther, Abhijit, and their two children over for Easter. We also had friends visiting with a young daughter, and Kate was living with us as well. (Glenn, unfortunately, was out of town that weekend.) So I constructed a clue hunt for the four children which sent them around the courtyard of our building and then through the Luxembourg Gardens. Here is a link to my blog describing that clue hunt:
https://pariswiththeellisons.blogspot.com/search?q=clue+hunt
Esther and Abhijit's kids loved it, and we have done several clue hunts for them since. This year, Glenn and I were away in Brittany for Easter weekend, so we scheduled a clue hunt for them this past week (with Kate visiting and able to help).
We started out by gathering at our apartment for brunch. After brunch, we had the kids search the apartment for some hidden clues. The first clue they were instructed to open gave them the URL for this blog, and the following, between the asterisks, is the post that they found there:
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Welcome to our clue hunt of 2024.
You'll have to use your wits, but quite a bit more...
A phone will come in handy.
A camera would be dandy.
French history you should know,
and you'll want your Navigo.
This map will take you to your next set of supplies.
A slip of white paper will hopefully catch your eyes.
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As instructed, they found two decoding grids on paper hidden at the M and N on the map above. They were sent around to find statues of particular queens and answer questions about them, that could then be decoded using the grids. Here is one of the grids with instructions:
After they texted them to me, and were given their next clues. And so it went for a while, with the kids being asked to find certain landmarks and answer questions about them, taking public transportation to get from place to place.
Meanwhile, we adults took a taxi to a small park on the west side of Paris where there is always a bunch of men playing petanque. Esther asked one of the men, who was wearing a gold-colored sweater, if he would mind conspiring with us on this clue hunt. We would give him a bag containing the prize, which he could hide away someplace. Then, sometime in the next half hour or so, a group of kids would arrive and ask him "What color is Henri VI's white horse?" (en francais). He would then produce the bag once they asked the secret question.
Clues directed the kids to the petanque park, and we had instructed them to take a photo and send it to us when they arrived. When we received the text, we then gave the final instruction to ask the man in the gold-colored sweater the secret question. After a bit of hesitation, they worked up the courage to approach this stranger and ask him about Henri IV's horse. He was amused and they were thrilled---a successful clue hunt!
They brought the bag back to Esther's apartment, filled with fancy desserts and other goodies, and we all enjoyed the results of their hard work.
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