Future vacation destinations

Ms N and I have a short list of vacations we'd like to take in the reasonably near future. We're going to Alaska in a few weeks (which for me is a trip home), we'd like to get down to Puerto Rico to visit her homeland, we'd like to get over to Europe at least twice (once to Spain at her request, once to Germany and Denmark for me).

But after a bit of surfin' the web, I've stumbled across a new destination to add to the list ...

Waco, Texas.

Waco is not on my list because of the two infamous centers of cult activity nearby (the Branch Davidians being just to the northeast and Crawford being a bit further to the west). Nor is it on my list because of Baylor University, either, even though after 151 years they have finally allowed dancing on campus.

(Do you know why Baptists don't allow couples to have sex while standing up? It may lead to dancing.)

Nope. It's because of this museum:

Sorry, Walker fans. It's not the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum. Why would I travel half way across the country to see that?

I want to see the Dr Pepper Museum. I would like to be a pepper, too.

Oh, those 23 flavors of carbonated out-of-the-ordinary goodness. I love me some Dr Pepper!

I even love me some knock-off brands, like Dr. W and Mr. Pibb.

Ms N, of course, thinks I am insane. She is decidedly not a pepper.

Dr Pepper makes up half of the duo of soft drinks that she won't touch on cultural grounds. Having grown up in the mean streets of Brooklyn, she insists that Dr Pepper and Mountain Dew are the beverages "only white people drink."

Naturally, I take exception to that statement. Granted, Dr Pepper was much more prevalent in the Redneck Riviera than up here. And although I've never seen it myself, I'm sure somewhere out there is a non-Caucasian Dr Pepper drinker. Come to think of it, I once saw an African-American enjoying a can so much that he immediately started dancing with joy.

Oh wait, that was in a commercial.

I'm not complaining. Her refusal to imbibe simply means more bebida de blanca for me. And if she never gets to enjoy the wonders of the post-Pepper belch, well, that's her loss.

Now all I have to do is convince her that Waco is a place we should visit, which may be a tough sell. After all, the lure of free Dr Pepper is enticing to only one of us.