Puerto Rico Adventure - Day 6

[Composed August 3rd, 2024]

And on the 6th day, the family rested. Ahhh, Shabbat. After days of hurried mornings and packed itineraries, I truly relished having a day where we had nowhere to be and no tasks to complete.

The weather cooperated and we spent the morning playing in our home's pool. The pool, by my standards wasn't the largest or most extravagant. But the kids, to their credit, were nothing but overjoyed to be spending hours playing in the pool.

For the last few trips, I've tried to bring along a new board game that we can all learn and play together. I'm out for a unicorn, of course, but my main criteria are: a high degree of portability, cooperative game play, quick to learn, and an emphasis on strategy over luck. After reviewing a number of posts on the web, I arrived at our candidate: Pandemic the Cure.

After lunch, we finally had a chance to sit down as a group and play the game.

It was...OK. It did indeed check many, if not all the boxes. It was relatively portable: the game comes in a full sized box, but consists mostly of dice and cards that fit in the provided dice bag. It's not pocket friendly, but it's certainly checked-bag friendly. It is collaborative, too.

I initially found the number of rules and sequence of game play to be confusing. I felt like I had to hold too many concepts in my head at one time, but we did eventually get comfortable with the flow. As for the strategy vs luck side, here too, it met the goal. The game is dice based, so there's definitely luck involved, but as a team we had the opportunity to make many decisions which determined the outcome of the game.

The game also has no writing it in, which makes it more Shabbos friendly (it worked for us; though I'm sure for some handling dice on Shabbat isn't kosher). Players take on different roles, with each role having a sort of super power. This allowed each one of the kids to have moments throughout the game where their character had the focus and saved the day.

So if it checked all the boxes, why aren't I fully raving about the game? Eh, it's hard to say. At times, the game moved a bit slow and players could be checked out. BUt mostly, we just didn't love playing it. We finished a couple of games but didn't have the drive to play it over and over again.

I will say that for a game that was developed before the Covid 19 pandemic, it did a solid job of capturing how you might gameify a pandemic.

I'll try again with another board game next year, and am glad to have Pandemic on our shelf for home game play.

We decided to close the day out with a movie. Finding a movie that appeals to everyone is tricky business, but I'd recently re-watched a favorite from growing up and thought it was perfect. The film: Uncle Buck starring the legendary funny man John Candy.

Uncle Buck was released in 1989, which makes it positively ancient. At 35 years old, it's the equivalent of my Uncle putting on a film from 1955 for my teenage cousins and I to enjoy. I'm well aware that many films from the 1980's are positively unwatchable. But, I'd recently re-watched Uncle Buck and felt like it held up. While most of the film is your basic goofy comedy, it does brush up against serious topics like sexual assault. In its own way, I think it handles these well.

Of course the kids groaned when I put the movie on, sure that this crusty film was going to be a flop. In no time, John Candy's physical comedy had the kids laughing out loud. But it's the more sensitive side of the plot that really shined. Candy plays the out of touch Uncle Buck (UB) who finds himself caring for his brother and sister-in-law's two innocent young kids and one very cantankerous teen.

What UB lacks in traditional parenting skills he more than makes up for with non-conventional problem solving and a giant heart.

At the end of the movie the kids had to begrudgingly admit that they enjoyed it. Score one for non-conventional problem solving by UB (Uncle Ben).

What a fun and relaxed day. Of course, now I'm fully recharged and ready to take on our last day in Puerto Rico. So enough resting, let's get to playing!

Puerto Rico Adventure - Day 5

[Composed August 2nd, 2024]

Today we explored the US's only tropical rain forest in the National Forest System: El Yunque. And if I'm being honest, it wasn't until I was standing in the frozen food section of Ralph's, well after we left the park, that I began to appreciate just how excellent the day had been.

Until that moment, I'd been focusing on what hadn't worked. Crowds meant that we missed climbing Yokahu Tower. The trail we were eager to explore was closed, and the alternate hike we opted for was so arduous that we couldn't all participate. It wasn't that it had been a bad day, I had just left the park wanting more.

But standing in Ralph's, my perspective flipped. To see how, you need to go back to the beach where we enjoyed our first full day in Puerto Rico. This tree, filled with fruit, was growing near where we parked our car.

Google Lens identified it as a Noni Fruit, which is edible. However, descriptions like this one, kept me from plucking one and coaxing the kids to try it:

Although noni flourishes in tough-to-grow areas, which makes it a famine food in times of need, its funkiness — both flavor and aroma — is also one reason why noni is considered a starvation fruit to be eaten only in extremely dire times. To put it simply, noni tastes much like the smell that gives it the moniker of vomit or cheese fruit: putrid and vomit-like with hints of funky cheese. While noni, in general, has a pungent and astringent flavor, it ranges in complexity depending on the stage of ripeness.

So yeah, we passed on Noni fruit. But since then, I've been on the lookout for other tropical fruits we could forage. While roaming the El Yunque visitor's center, I noticed this fruit tree:

Google identified this as a Breadfruit, which for starters, just sounds more appetizing. The fruit, however, was well out of reach from picking.

One explanation for Breadfruit's name comes from the texture and aroma it produces when roasted over a fire:

Breadfruit originated in New Guinea and the Indo-Malay region and was spread throughout the vast Pacific by voyaging islanders. Europeans discovered breadfruit in the late 1500s. They were amazed and delighted by a tree that produced prolific, starchy fruits that, when roasted in a fire, resembled freshly baked bread in texture and aroma.

Both the past (mutiny!) and future (super-food!) of breadfruit are fascinating. From at least the 1700's to today, this fast growing, nutritious fruit has inspired scientists of the day to consider it as a resource for feeding vulnerable populations*.

In Ralph's, I found a bag of frozen breadfuit that promised easy preparation in the Airbnb's air fryer. Who needed to hike more of El Yunque, when we could taste it instead?

And so we found ourselves sitting around the Shabbos table, all bravely working up the courage to try this new food. The verdict: when fried and covered it ketchup, breadfruit is tasty! We reminisced about the day as we ate.

We talked about how the kids enjoyed the bright-red Skittles 'liquid water enhancer', and that 4 drops were basically a toxic dose. We recalled the different waterfalls we saw and how the rain didn't slow us down one bit. G shared in detail about how when she hit the limit her legs could carry her, J kept the hike going by giving her an epic piggie back ride. T and I talked about the views and snails we spotted, including two snail buddies who were sitting just so looked, depending your maturity level like a set of other-wordly eyes, or boobs.

It really was a wonderful day. Noshing on breadfruit reminded me that there's more ways to explore a location than just logging miles.

*To be clear, in the 1700's the vulnerable population were enslaved Africans. So scientists and governments were on the lookout for a way to feed a population that they brutally amassed. The use of breadfruit may have been clever and scientifically interesting; but the need for it was due to barbaric and horrific actions.