You can boil ’em. You can scramble ’em. You can whip ’em up with veggies and cheese. You can even devil ’em. If you’re feeling devilish — we absolutely don’t endorse this — you can sneak out in the middle of the night and lovingly decorate somebody’s house with ’em.
But first you must find them. That shouldn’t be hard this weekend. Easter eggs will be hidden by the thousands all over Clark County on Saturday and in Camas on Sunday. For that matter, they’ll also be hidden in some special spots south of the river, like the Oregon Zoo and Fairview’s Blue Lake Park — which will be the site of the nearest All-Abilities Egg Hunt this year.
In recent years, a Clark County charity called Autism Empowerment has valiantly staged a huge, “differently abled” Easter egg hunt at Evergreen High School’s McKenzie Stadium. It was aimed at children with disabilities and differences of all sorts — from physical challenges that turn a fun scavenger hunt into a stressful competition, to the sorts of sensory-processing syndromes that can render a happy outdoor gathering totally overstimulating and overwhelming.
Autism Empowerment’s alternative: age-grouped hunts where you could move at your very own pace, in your wheelchair or with your walker as needed, perhaps without the help of working eyeballs — but with the help of a family member or friend or event volunteer. The much-needed event has been a runaway success, with more than 1,600 people attending from as far away as Salem, Ore., and Seattle in 2015 — plus “a pretty amazing group of service animals, first responders” and supportive nonprofit agencies and businesses, according to Autism Empowerment’s website.
