Tropical Fun

While I was slicing mango last night I realized our fridge was about to become a tropical wonderland. It already had sliced pineapple and sliced papaya, and now I was about to add two freshly sliced mangos. Delicious! Pineapple and mango are easily two of my favorite fruits.

And speaking of the tropics, this is a fine time to mention the cruise we went on last month with Wendy’s family. Our ultimate destination was the Panama Canal, but we did plenty of other things along the way:

• Bill and I went jet-skiing in the Bahamas. It was unbelievably cold and windy (apparently arctic air can still reach the Bahamas), but the wind churned up waves that made for a much more fun and intense jet-ski ride.
• Wendy and I went snorkeling in hot and sunny Aruba. Fortunately Aruba, which is just off the coast of South America, is close enough to the equator that arctic air can’t penetrate.
• We all went on a tour of caves in Curacao, which is an island just east of Aruba.
• We all got to see the ship enter the Panama Canal. Many pictures were taken.
• Wendy and I, along with Bill and Beth, took an aerial tram through the canopy of a rain forest in Panama.
• Bill and I went zip-lining in Costa Rica (Abby and Matt did too, but in a different group). Meanwhile, Wendy and Beth went kayaking through a Costa Rica jungle.

One of the daily on-board activities was Team Trivia Challenge, and our group completely crushed all competition (those who know the Drescher clan will not be surprised at all by this). We won at least 5 or 6 days and tied on another day. It was a 10-day cruise, and there were a couple of days without a trivia challenge, so we won somewhere around 75% of the time. We all came home with lots of mugs, bags, water bottle carriers, and Rubik’s cubes thanks to the famous Drescher Trivia Prowess.

The award for Most Interesting Passenger went to a Canadian music professor Wendy and I ate dinner with one evening. He collects musical instruments and currently has around 5,000 pieces, which is the largest private collection in North America. He supplied all the instruments for the Disney re-make of the Music Man, even providing a historically-accurate double bell euphonium for the song “76 Trombones”. He’s married, and joked that his wife will never divorce him because if she does, she’s stuck with half the instruments.

The ship also had internet access, and although it was expensive, I bought enough time to give me about ten minutes a day to catch up on my internet activities. I quickly discovered what information was most important to me: my email, the weather at our house (thanks to my weather station), and the latest college football news.

Finally, two bonus items:
1) A video I took of people doing the zip-line in Costa Rica:



2) A trivia question from Team Trivia Challenge that completely stumped the Drescher clan:

• What does a spermologist collect? Keep in mind this was a family-friendly contest. I’ll post the answer in the comments.