PUZZLE #192: Island Hopping

PUZZLE #192

ISLAND HOPPING

This next puzzle was inspired by one of my usual solvers, Lynn Sweeney. I introduced her to Hashi puzzles not too long ago, and while we were solving some together, Lynn and I came up with a couple twists for this puzzle that would make it suitable for this blog. I wound up using both ideas while making this next puzzle, so I hope you enjoy this effort we came up with!

Presenting a wordy twist on Hashi/Bridges! Below is a sea of islands, all labeled with lowercase letters, floating among blue capital letters. Your job is to connect all the islands with bridges (or lines) between islands so that the islands form a single connected group. First, replace the lowercase letters on each island with the answers to each corresponding clue, all of which will be numbers greater than zero. Then, use the numbers to add bridges while obeying the following rules:

1. The number on each island tells you how many bridges are to be connected to that individual island.
2. There are a maximum of two bridges between any pair of islands.
3. All bridges are placed vertically or horizontally, never diagonally or at an angle.
4. A bridge never passes through or over an island.
5. Bridges cannot cross over each other.

Once you've connected all the bridges, it's time do do some travelling! Begin at the island marked "Start" and cross over bridges until you arrive at the island marked "Finish", picking up blue capital letters along the way. The FINAL ANSWER will be what the blue letters spell out, in order.

a) Number of colors on Poland's flag
b) Brett Favre's jersey number
c) Number of US Presidents elected more than two times
d) Number of the Super Mario Bros. game that introduces the Raccoon power-up
e) Number of Sleeping Beauty's fairy godmothers in the Disney movie
f) Number of Isaac Asimov's Laws of Robotics
g) Number of US states whose names end in "T"
h) Number of members of Cream
i) Lithium's atomic number
j) Foreigner album that includes "Urgent" and "Waiting for a Girl Like You"
k) Number of points that a "U" tile is worth in Scrabble
l) Number of sons in the Brady Bunch family
m) Number of sisters Rarity has in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
n) It's a "magic number", according to Schoolhouse Rock!
o) Keyboard key that shares its space with a dollar sign
p) Number of billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri in an Oscar-winning movie
q) Number of NBA championships won by the Miami Heat (so far)
r) Metallica song with the lyrics "Hold my breath as I wish for death"
s) Number of seasons that NBC's Chuck ran for
t) Crash Bandicoot __: Cortex Strikes Back

Once you believe you've figured out the FINAL ANSWER, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star", more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a version you can print out!