Tyler's 8^th Birthday -- Outside
Photos taken April 23, posted April 26, 2005
© 2005, Herbert E. Lindberg

Tyler had a whiz bang Indiana Jones birthday party on Saturday, April 23, thanks to four weeks of outside preparation by Craig and damage-control assistance and food preparation by Jodie.  During the years since they moved into their Nevada City home, Craig has been exploring their five acres as time allows. He's completed his first goal of hacking a trail that roughly circles the severe hillside, heavily-vegetated property, and is now doing some off-trail exploring. He recently discovered two more openings to the gold mines that riddled the whole region during the Gold Rush. He already knew of  two dangerously open mine shafts when he purchased the property.  The new discoveries are adits -- nearly horizontal tunnels into the hillside, the most efficient way to get underground when a hillside is available. I haven't hiked Craig's recent trails to explore these adits, but he tells me they're stable (not likely to collapse) and it's possible to go into them quite a way if you stoop down. Having discovered them not long before Tyler's birthday, he was inspired to make them the crowning features of an Indiana Jones treasure hunt for the six birthday party participants from Tyler's school class. He called the adits caves and hid treasures in them at a safe distance along the tunnels. He also hid clues leading to the treasures at other stations along the hunt. The hunt began at Tyler's Fort, up in the trees near the driveway to Craig and Jodie's house. There they found a gold-painted box with a note telling them to ride a zip line to the next clues, and also a BB gun to be used later.

The hunt began with a zip line decent from Tyler's fort.

Clues at the end of the zip line directed them to a second station at which Craig had strung water-filled balloons which the boys had to burst with a BB gun to obtain clues to the third station of the treasure hunt. Each balloon contained a numbered note wrapped in a washer that fell to the ground when the balloon was burst.

The boys survey the balloons and stand in line to shoot (the single gun, under Craig's control).

Tyler has just taken his shot.

After the others had their turns, Tyler shoots one of the extra balloons.

Crop-in to burst balloon and falling water in above picture.

Each note was a partial sentence that instructed the boys how to find the next treasure station. The boys had to cooperate and read them in the numbered order to decode the sentence (Craig had an extra set to fill in any that were lost or damaged in the balloon shoot).

Tyler reads his part of the clue.

Crop-in to Tyler reading in the above picture.

The clues described a "secret" door to the crawl space under the house where Craig had locked needed items in a treasure chest (one of Jodie's moving chests). Scattered about in the crawl space were puzzle pieces with parts of the lock combination, so the boys again had to work together to find the treasure. I knew less than the boys about what was going on as I chased them from one station to the next (I knew only that there was going to be a treasure hunt that included the recently-found gold mine adits). Craig told me later that the treasures they found here were flashlight batteries in a Cracker Jacks box for each boy (which they would need later in the hunt) along with more numbered clues to the next station. (Craig's plan was for each boy to have a fanny pack to carry his accumulating treasure, but the mail-ordered packs didn't arrive in time so Craig gave each boy a camping ditty bag, which you'll see later).

Then they run back to the door out of the crawl space, clutching their treasure boxes.

At the fourth station they dug more clues out of Tyler's sand box.

In the sand were magnifying glasses and tiny clue strips to be read with them.

The tiny clue strips were numbered just as were those at the balloon-shooting station, and led the boys to the fifth station, which was a sink hole at an old mine shaft. Seconds after reading the tiny clue strips the boys were off and running, with Craig running after them. Something told me to take a picture of Craig running down the hill, because that was the last I was to see of any of them until another balloon-shooting several stations later.

Craig runs down the hill to Station 5, the sink hole called Tyler's Secret Hideaway. This shot gives an idea of the drizzling rain and 100% humidity.

I did follow Craig down this hill and saw the sink hole but they were all long gone by the time my old bones got there. I followed them another hundred yards down a steep, narrow trail through the chaparral where I could see them at the sixth station, but had no idea how they got there (the trail just kept going down at a steep angle and the boys were at my level and only about forty feet to my right, mostly hidden by the chaparral). I could hear enough of their conversation to determine that the treasure at this station was flashlights, which they needed to see in the adits to come. [Craig later told me that at the sink hole they had found golden spades (plus numbered clues to the next station, of course) which they needed to dig up the flashlights at the station here. This is where they needed the batteries they'd found in the treasure chest under the house.] Part of the reason I fell so far behind is that it had been raining softly for an hour or two and was still raining. The hillside and trail were muddy and slippery, and a tall, out of shape old man was no match for short, infinite energy, 8-year-old boys. Jodie and Mary didn't even attempt to go down the trail, but they did stick it out in the rain and went to the second shooting station, which was down by the well. I learned this after dragging myself back up the steep trail (did I mention that the trail was steep?) and found two rain-soaked and still loving wives.

Jodie and Mary wait in the rain for the boys to get to the second shooting station. (Mary's eyes are nearly closed for the picture, of course).

Sure enough, the boys soon came running down the hill toward the well with their ditty bags flying.

I didn't know there was going to be a second shooting station (I didn't know much of anything, remember?) but it was soon obvious that Craig's idea to have two shooting stations was right on target (so to speak). As soon as the boys rounded the intervening chaparral and saw the balloons, there was a shout of, "Oh boy, more balloons to shoot." Well before Craig arrived (even a champion bicycle racer can't keep up with a gang of excited 8-year-olds) the boys were shouting "Me first" and lining up to shoot. And shoot they did, and then off to what I think was another "cave" and the last scheduled stations.

Craig hands the gun off to the first shooter.

Jodie, Mary and I could just barely tell which direction the boys went toward the next treasure, much less go there ourselves. I started to walk in their direction but thought better of it and instead trudged up the hill back to the house, with great difficulty (did I mention that the hillside is steep?). Craig later told me that the next station was a sink hole that he called "The Pit of Death." The boys had to climb down a ladder into the pit and retrieve 6 notes which were each guarded by a coiled snake (rubber).

Ladder, snakes, and notes in the Pit of Death.

Clues from the Pit of Death led to the other recently-discovered adit that had to be entered by crawling under a natural arch, which Craig had decorated with Golden Gnomes to guard the tunnel in the picture below. Inside the tunnel Craig had scattered gold coins (chocolate inside), hid in crevices 6 tiny chests filled with more such coins, and placed in dark reaches toy airplanes and other such boy treasures. Craig said they cleaned the tunnel out in maybe 60 seconds.

End-goal treasure tunnel -- cleaned out in 60 seconds!

The final, unscheduled, station was the garage, where Jodie had a stack of towels, which Craig used to clean up the boys, and dry clothes to change into. Then we herded them through the mud room entrance to the house for final cleaning before sending them down to Tyler's play room for the rest of the party. In an email message the next day Craig told me that he and Jodie crashed into immediate sleep after the last boy was picked up by his parent. These last two pictures and the noted additions came in a later email  from Craig on April 26. The birthday party inside the house was more conventional, but I may post a few summarizing shots if I find time.

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