pchow13 wrote: Tue Dec 12, 2023 7:13 pm
After a day and a half, we have a whopping 83 solvers so far bringing it home!
7 more solvers successfully found the meta answer bringing our grand total to 90!
LCC17
Dow Jones
Kent
SeamusOL
Naptown kid
Katiedid
damefox
Successful solvers noticed (perhaps with the help of the clue for MONIKER at 45-Across) that state nicknames are involved.
The states are as follows (in grid order):
The Show-Me State = Missouri
The Buckeye State = Ohio
The Beehive State = Utah
The Granite State = New Hampshire
The Volunteer State = Tennessee
The Natural State = Arkansas
The Prairie State = Illinois
The Empire State = New York
The first letters of these states spell out MOUNTAIN, and so the meta answer is the Mountain State =
West Virginia
Congratulations to everyone who worked this out! Shout-out to meta super-solver FrankieHeck who hails from the Mountain State.
Props to an anonymous super-determined individual that guessed every state in alphabetical order
Many thanks to DrTom and Abide for reaching out to me and encouraging me to submit puzzles to the Muggles forum.
DrTom for his sound advice that a debut puzzle here should not have too many convoluted leaps in logic as that would scare everyone away, and Abide for featuring this puzzle for the MMM and help with this forum. Thank you to Joe Ross and all the moderators here for technical support. And thank you for this wonderful community. Now that I know about the WSJ crossword contest, I'm all set to try and win that elusive mug.
If you enjoyed this puzzle, please check out my other puzzles on Crosshare at
https://crosshare.org/pchow13. They cover a wide range of topics and span from easy to hard in difficulty level. Nudges and solutions are posted upon release (I love instant gratification... I drive my friends crazy when I read up on spoilers before watching shows and I try my darnedest not to spoil it for them). Can you resist the temptation to peek?
I plan to release new puzzles every other Saturday. Post and discussion for the latest puzzle can be found on the PCC subforum:
https://www.xword-muggles.com/viewforum.php?f=53
I would also like to thank Mike D at Crosshare for creating and running the site. Without him, I wouldn't have this amazing tool for creating puzzles and a FREE platform for sharing these puzzles with y'all. Please consider donating to keep the site alive:
https://crosshare.org/donate
-Phil
