XWord Muggles Forum

gatogato wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 8:26 am

LadyBird wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 8:24 am

gatogato wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 8:11 am I cannot find any way to measure Bonn, Germany, and Basel, Switzerland as 302 miles apart. Being unable to get beyond that I did not even get to the point of trying to find the next step.

I didn't get too caught up in the actual distances. I figured that Matt was using those so that people would realize that it was Rome, NY not Italy. Although I did pore over Google Maps at first trying to find an Italian city near Rome named Tica.

I probably would have done the same except all the rest were spot on with the tool I was using to look at the distances. I couldn't get past it being the only one which wasn't exact, especially when I couldn't find anything to put it within 10 miles of being correct.

In hindsight I wish I had just taken it for what it was, it's a really cool puzzle.

Joepickett wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:36 am I did get the mechanism and then the right answer by looking at the past puzzles as I had hoped. But it was a Mike Shenk creation that helped me out. Sound Investment from 2/22/2019 used the mechanism of sandwiching the final letters in pairs of letters from the previous step. That was my aha!
I had translated M Sea to EMCEE earlier and I was stuck there for a bit before my breakthrough.

Joe Ross wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 10:03 am

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:02 am Having grown up in upstate NY and having four years of trekking to Syracuse with our daughter, I drove by Utica a lot and went with Mohawk River as it is natural. And there are canals associated with all the other bodies of water so I felt going with one canal when there was an option, was inconsistent. That added more than a little time to the search.

Maybe not having local knowledge helped, here.

Two things:

• On interweb maps, Erie Canal seems the obvious choice, visually.

• Having sung Low Bridge (15 Miles on the Erie Canal) too many times when a twerp, I couldn't fathom another answer.

DrTom wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:43 am

FuminCuban wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 7:20 am I said FJORD to complete the sequence of waterways. I like my answer better, but grant that I'm a sore loser.

There's always next week!

I'm Afjord that is incorrect, oh well, water ya gonna do...

Sorry couldn't let that flow by without making a pun.

hcbirker wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:58 am After finding all the different bodies of water, I saw "Panama" spaced out at 22 Across, and thought for sure I was on to something. Then found "Seine" at 16 across. So I deduced that I had to find another ocean, sea and lake. Nothing. ...

Magistra wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:02 am

DrTom wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:43 am

FuminCuban wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 7:20 am I said FJORD to complete the sequence of waterways. I like my answer better, but grant that I'm a sore loser.

There's always next week!

I'm Afjord that is incorrect, oh well, water ya gonna do...

Sorry couldn't let that flow by without making a pun.

I also went with fjord because I found Oslo within the grid. Although there was no second city, I reasoned that it didn't matter as the fjord appears to be the only water route out of Oslo.

Wendy Walker wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:23 am I Googled cities and distances on the Rhine so much in the past few days that -- judging from what now pops up at the top of my Google searches -- Viking River Cruises has me down as an incandescently hot prospect. My WAG was going to be GENOA, a (1) sail that (2) also has a city name.

MikeMillerwsj wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:20 am Lots and lots of incorrect watery 5-letter guesses including ROLLS (26) and ROILS (7) -- what was going on there?

BrianMac wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:26 am Wow, best mug-winning odds we're likely to see for a while!

MikeMillerwsj wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:20 am Lots and lots of incorrect watery 5-letter guesses including ROLLS (26) and ROILS (7) -- what was going on there?

River
Ocean
[something... Spent some time here myself]
Lake
Sea

HunterX wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:07 am Before I finally figured out the correct second step, I got caught up in the "Find an anagram of the [word] in other clues with one letter extra/off" rabbit hole. I noticed that there are anagrams of 'SEA' and 'LAKE' with one letter to change, and 3 for 'OCEAN'. Kept searching for 'CANAL' and 'RIVER' until my eyes went blurry.

Then tried looking for alternate bodies of water for each of the types. 'APIAN ANTICLIMAX' kept making me see 'ATLANTIC' as well as a broken up 'PANAMA'.

Also found the SE(L)INE river, NILE backwards, Lake (Loch) NESS.... And so much more.

I got a little held up when I looked on Google Maps and saw "Pools Brook Canal" between Utica and Rome. After finding RWR (and slapping my forehead), I knew it must be the Erie Canal, of which Pools Brook Canal is apparently a part(?).

BrianMac wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:26 am Wow, best mug-winning odds we're likely to see for a while!

Wendy Walker wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:35 am I move that in addition to the usual matters on the Zoom agenda we add a discussion point: "Omitting the mileage information would have simplified/complicated the puzzle."

MikeMillerwsj wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:20 am This contest was a Matt Gaffney special, taking solvers down an elegantly tangled trail with several steps. It appeared to be a bit tougher than usual--we had 952 entries and only about 56% correct. Lots and lots of incorrect watery 5-letter guesses including ROLLS (26) and ROILS (7) -- what was going on there? Also CANAL (18), OCEAN (10), ATLAS (6), SLOOP (6), FERRY (5), SHORE (4) and many others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Greg Roberts of Fayetteville, GA!