Help This Woman Make Ocean City Scavenger Hunt For Her Grandkids

OCEAN CITY, N.J. — Barbara Coupe and her family love visiting Ocean City. Her son takes his family there every Easter break, and Coupe found a creative way to keep her family entertained.

Coupe's son has three children: ages 13, 11 and 7. Last year, she created an Ocean City scavenger hunt for her family, who live in Downingtown, Pa. The youngest child has autism, so she created a journey that was suitable for all ages and abilities.

Coupe provided Patch with her clues from last year's scavenger hunt. We present them for two reasons:

1. You can give these clues to your kids and challenge them to a similar scavenger hunt.
2. Coupe's family is returning to Ocean City soon, and she needs some help thinking of new scavenger hunt spots around town. We're asking our readership to help brainstorm some places she can lead her grandkids.

Last year, the family's hunt began with taking a picture in front of the sunrise.

"That was one of their challenges: time to get up, take a picture with the sunrise, so they can appreciate it," Coupe said.

Coupe remembers taking her own children to the Ocean City Historical Museum. Part of her scavenger hunt's purpose is to get the grandchildren — Bob, Cate and Declan — to value Ocean City history. One historical spot included taking a picture in front of Grace Kelly's former home.

She also wanted to get her whole family to interact with people around Ocean City. Coupe wanted to show her grandkids that most strangers in Ocean City are nice people, and it's OK to interact with them.

Coupe directed her son to take a picture with an Ocean City officer on the boardwalk. The officer was receptive to the idea, so they called another one over to join the family picture.

"People join in with them. Each one of them had to have a picture to verify it. I don't trust my own family," Coupe laughed.

Here were some of the other challenges from last year:

The grandkids needed to find a popular picture location in town. Coupe's goal in this challenge was for them to have fun and not get embarrassed if everyone was watching.

Cate was going through a somersault phase. So she needed to do a somersault on the beach with the ferris wheel in the background.

While the kids enjoyed 34th Street Playground, they needed to take a picture of their mother, Robyn, coming down the slide.

"Older kids would not have gone so my goal was they all had to go give Mom some time to relax while they ran around and to show them Mom could be a fun person as well," Coupe said.

The grandchildren had to find Bobby the Storm Chaser, the mascot for the Ocean City Nor'easters.

They weren't able to find Bobby, but they got the next best thing. The team printed a letterhead for Bob to display.

Coupe is looking for places of historical value, unusual and family-friendly eateries, and more.

If you think of ideas, email Coupe at barb525@comcast.net, or comment them here.

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