A mid-morning snack on a cruise is part of the pleasure of cruising. I don’t have mid-morning snacks at home but it just seems right to relax on a cruise ship and nibble at a cookie or some other fresh-baked sweet between breakfast and lunch.

One of my favorites aboard Royal Caribbean cruises is their popular Coconut Ranger cookies. When Royal Caribbean shared the recipe, I made the cookies at home for my family. We all agreed the cookies were delicious but something was missing – the ocean, of course. Read more...

Ben Blanchard was hoping to strike it rich by discovering oil under the Kansas prairie. Instead, in 1887, Ben found white gold – one of the largest salt deposits in the nation.

More than 400 feet thick, the salt deposit stretches from central Kansas into Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. Read more...

The new 930-guest Viking Neptune has now been “floated out,” the first time the ship has touched water. The event marks a major construction milestone for the Neptune.

“It is always a special day when a new ship meets water for the first time, and we look forward to welcoming guests on board the Viking Neptune this fall,” Torstein Hagen, Viking chairman, said in a news release. Read more...

The first time I walked by it on my Royal Caribbean Symphony of the Seas cruise, I thought it might be a children’s treasure game. You know, the kind where a gigantic robotic arm reaches down to retrieve a toy from a pile of rewards. Children often expect to get that big expensive toy and usually end up with an unwanted trinket. Read more...

She patiently stares out at sea waiting for a ship to dock. The small white dog was born deaf but somehow sensed when an incoming ship was about a half-mile away. She also had the uncanny ability to determine the dock where the ship would moor.

So, the trivia question has two parts. First, what is the name of this English bull terrier? And second, where is this statue located? Read more...

Celebrity’s newest spectacular ship has the perfect name. Apex. Meaning the highest point, the peak, the summit, the Celebrity Apex is all this and more.

Because of COVID-19, it took 581 days longer than anticipated for the Apex to arrive in U.S. ports. The vessel’s launch was originally planned for late March 2020. Read more...

Hondo Crouch owned two Texas ranches: one between Comfort and Fredericksburg and the other about a half hour away in Sisterdale.

The tiny burg of Luckenbach was smack dab in the middle.

Every evening when Hondo headed home from Fredericksburg to Sisterdale, he would stop halfway in Luckenbach for a cold beer. Read more...

A tractor mishap helped put the career of a renowned bluesman in high gear. If not for the 1946 accident, the world might never have heard of Riley King.

Of course, we got to know him as B.B. King.

“Because of that accident, Riley King left Indianola for Memphis,” said Robert Terrell, Director of Operations for the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola, Mississippi.  “Memphis is where he got his nickname and where he became known as ‘The King of the Blues.’” Read more...

Six-year-old Justice loves school and can’t imagine a world in which she would be denied the right to be in a classroom. That’s why the Indianapolis girl has come to The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis to honor a young Pakistani girl who was almost killed for seeking an education. Read more...