The Big Adventure
Eli 6.7 is on spring break.Spring break is different than when I was a kid. When I was a kid, your mom handed you a stick with spikes on it and told you to play with it all week, and you better not lacerate your kidneys. And we liked it.
Now, it seems like spring break is a failure unless a kid goes to Colorado or Outer Space or The Future.
We've had a great week playing Super Mario Brothers, rock climbing at Main Event, recreating the wreck of the Titanic with a paper boat, and just hanging out. At some point, we were talking about treasure and pirates, and Eli said "I wish we could have a big adventure."
Noted.
So I got an idea.
On Friday, Federal Express is going to deliver an overnight envelope to our house, addressed to me. I'll tell Eli I'm busy in the kitchen and ask him to read it to me. It's going to be "from" someone I haven't talked to in years, but they're going to say that I helped them out once, and they knew I was "clever," so they're giving me the last will and testament of a notorious scoundrel.
This scoundrel's will is going to be written on faux-parchment, and it's going to include a series of riddles and clues that will lead us all over the place--eventually, to a park in Wells Branch, where I'm going to bury a small wooden pirate's chest (about 6"x4"x4" ) inside a simple wooden box. Inside that box will be some pyrite, a one million gold doubloon bill, replica pieces of eight, and other shiny pirate things.
What I'm hoping is that Eli will be so convinced this is real that he'll demand to start on the hunt immediately, but I'll tell him it's too late and that we'll start Saturday morning.
Like Christmas Eve, but with pirates.
Saturday morning, it should take us several hours to work through the puzzles and clues (which I haven't written yet), and by the time we dig up the chest, I'm hoping it will qualify as the big adventure he was hoping to have.
So if you have any ideas about what the puzzles or clues should be like, or any ideas in general, please let me know. When we're done, I'll write up what happened, so if you want to do this with your kids, you'll have a head start.
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