Fun Scavenger Hunts on our Hike

There’s nothing more fun than a scavenger hunt unless it’s TWO scavenger hunts! That’s just what we did the other day when we went hiking at Veeren’s Gardens. This is a beautiful area that has long wooden walkways over the marsh to get to the intercoastal waterway and lots of hiking trails. It was perfect weather for our fun scavenger hunts on our hike.

My FB friend had sent me information on a Paint Chip Hike and we turned it into a Paint Chip Scavenger Hunt for Lia’s birthday party. Kids and adults loved searching our yard for things the same color of the paint chips. This is a blog I wrote last month describing this cool idea. http://themarthareview.com/paint-chip-scavenger-hunt/

The other day Rich and I along with Lia and her mommy went on a nature hike and I took the same paint chips we used for her birthday party. It was so much fun as we were hiking to look for things of the same color of our paint chips.

For the gold paint chip we found a seashell that Lia said was gold. It’s not that far off either! The blue sky was perfect for the blue chip. We were just about to the end of our hike and we didn’t see anything pink. Lia was holding the pink chip as we were looking for something when I asked her what can we find in pink. She held up the chip and said her shirt was pink! Okay it’s a stretch but she’s right and her shirt was on the hike! But look what we found just as we were leaving, a beautiful pink flower!

Lia and I were having fun on our search, look at the green branches we found for the green chip and a white shell for the white chip. Lia was so excited as she held up the brown chip against the big tree trunk. It helped that we walked along the shore of the intercoastal waterway where there were lots of shells, even these gray ones for the gray paint chip.

I don’t know what kind of flowers these are but they’re yellow to go with the yellow paint chip and this lone red leaf works perfect for the red chip.

Now the only color left was purple and it looked like we may not find anything purple. But me being one to finish a challenge I was determined to find purple. As we were walking down the path towards the truck I found purple! The lady in front of me had purple in her umbrella! When I told Alex and pop I was going over to ask if I could take a picture they both thought I was nuts. When I asked the lady’s husband if I could take a picture of his wife’s umbrella for a scavenger hunt he had no idea what I was talking about, he didn’t even know his wife had an umbrella with her! But I got my picture and chatted with them for a few minutes. I found out they were vacationing from Alabama but they aren’t Roll Tide fans! I wished them a safe trip home and skipped my way back to our truck knowing we competed the Paint Chip Scavenger Hunt Hike. It wasn’t until I was looking through my pictures when I saw there was purple on the trail map guide. Oh well, I had a fun and got to chat with the couple from Alabama.

But our scavenger hunts were not over! Last week I received The Ultimate Book of Scavenger Hunts that I won from a Facebook giveaway. If you like fun scavenger hunts check out this book by Stacy Tornio. This is a great book to find the perfect hunt to do with you family. With 42 different scavenger hunts it will be fun to see how many we can go through.

After looking at all the cool scavenger hunts I decided the Nature Trail hunt would be great. The scavenger hunts in the book are set up on a point system so if doing one with a group of people or at a party you can keep track of points to see who the winner is. But now it’s on to the fun scavenger hunt to find things on the list.

The first on the list was to find grass taller than you. Since Lia was doing this hunt with me we found a field of grass that was taller than she was. The next item was to find a tree with berries but the closest we found was a tree with acorns. Think that’s close enough? As we were walking over the shells near the water we saw a white flowers with a yellow center growing in the water. It looks lavender but it’s white.

We hit the jackpot because we found two different styles of benches. One was an old cement on with seashells on the legs. The other was a wooden been down by the intercoastal waterway. This was in the perfect spot to watch the boats go by or just sit and reflect. Lia and mommy were taking a break and Lia was showing mommy a shell she found.

This little stream through the marsh empties into the intercoastal waterway after it crossing under a walking bridge and through more marshland. We found this when looking for water flowing.

We bummed out while looking for someone riding a bike. These are walking trails for people and pets so we didn’t see any bike riders. Maybe next time Lia should take her bicycle.

But we found a map! At the entrance of the nature trail they have maps available showing all the trail options! This is the map that gave us the purple in the Paint Chip Hike!

The last item on the list was grasshoppers and we didn’t see any of them either! Now if it was dragonflies we would have been able to get our point because we saw a lot of them just like we have in our yard.

I wonder if we can get extra credit for finding a spiderweb. I took photos of the pages of the scavenger hunt and I thought the spiderweb was in the Nature Trail hunt but it was from the Park hunt. Do you know how hard it is to find spiderwebs when you are looking? But I found one under the concrete bench!

Scavenger hunts are a great way to teach young children about the different colors or items plus have fun. Lia and I had such a great time while on our nature hike.