I was part of a really weird
triathlon involving
miniature golf, a
demolition derby on a
river, and
archeological underwater cave diving.
The miniature golf course was set up along the banked track of a mini race course. I don't remember much about it.
The demolition derby was the wildest event: it was something like Carmageddon on a river. There was a race component to it, but you could also win by destroying the other boats. The most interesting vehicle was a sort of floating vegetation collector, a pontoon boat with a rectangular area aft enclosed by a chain link curtain hanging down into the water. A large claw of metal scythes would reach back over the water, scoop up waterlilies or algae or whatever, and dump them in the basket.
But that's not the vehicle I picked. I got a small airplane -- not a seaplane, that would have made sense. It had twin jet engines mounted under the rear wing, what do you call it, the crosspiece near the rudder. There was also a propeller engine mounted somehow on the vertical bit of the tail behind the rudder, as a backup I think.
Then for some reason I'm in a convenience store-cum-Goodwill, and I see a really great deal: $8.99 for our 8-piece glass pitcher set. I get it even though I'm not near home, I've got to take it back to the hotel where I'm staying to compete. It consists of two large pitchers, two smaller pitchers, and four drinking glasses. Perfect for orange juice, I figure, or maybe sangria.
Then -- as a pun on "pitcher", I think -- there's a surprise event consisting of a computer game of baseball. I can't get the timing of the swing right, and it's really frustrating.
The final event is an underwater archaeology thing. We're back on a river, only now it looks rusty and full of stirred-up silt. I pull up to a dock and swim underneath it, groping for a ladder underneath it. I follow the ladder down to a hole in the retaining wall, which I swim through. As I haul out a large stone chest looking like a cross between a picnic cooler and a coffin, the announcer says, "You know, these workers get thirty cents every single time they do this. Thirty cents for each piece they bring back!" The other announcer says "Yes, it's a lot of money, but keep in mind that they can only do this for twenty years before their health is too weak to continue."
The announcer says that these tunnels -- I now notice that I'm not on a river but on a sort of municipal canal in a utility tunnel, or perhaps a flooded subway system -- are underneath every city. The other fellow says, "You mean to tell me that right now these treasures are laying beneath our very feet?" The first announcer agrees.
It's at about this time that I begin to wake up to the faint sounds of bongo drums, which are apparently the last bit of dream for the night, since I've been listening to an audiobook about Richard P. Feynman on my way to and from TBLC. Just before I wake up, as the sound is fading, I hear the announcer say, "You mean those are real bongo drums?"