XWord Muggles Forum

I’m originally from Gary ( but left to go to college at IU and never returned) and also have done 2 different excursions on Erie Canal, so I had 2 things in my favor. Great puzzle…

I got hung up on the Mohawk River briefly as well, and that’s where I thought the local knowledge would give an advantage over Google maps. My company used to own the cable TV system in Utica, so I spent some time back in the day driving around the area, and I knew the Erie Canal was pretty close to there even though it wasn’t very prominent on Google.

sanmilton wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 12:16 am I liked Matt's ingenious additional pointers: NAUTICAL, for obvious reasons, and BASELINE, because four of the five three-letter entries that sandwich the answer (RWR, ETC, LEM, and MRS) abut the bottom edge, and even PAO is entered in the lower third of the grid. I usually miss something, but even so, this was another great contribution to the Gaffney collection!

ANother “pointer” I also saw ( and it was what led me to the correct path) .... Mr Gaffney usually puts a “hint” in the SE corner grid spot. In this puzzle it is 66a LEM.

kamashdas wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 12:11 am How many people spent time trying to coerce ROCKS from ROCLS, I wonder? Lost 36 hours down that rabbit hole before reevaluating. Excellent puzzle again!

That was me! I couldn't figure out how to get Lake Michigan = K.

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.

GAHH! Irony of ironies… I was so determined to do this one without help, and actually accomplished that… now I realize I totally forgot to SEND the answer to the WSJ!! (Quick search in “sent” box… nope, I sure didn’t.). .

I bet there were quite a few who guessed “water” as the answer without finding the mechanism. That was my guess before finally finding the path.

Many times an unusual grid entry is part of the solution, and this time the “RWR” answer drew my interest especially with the “w” that would fit my “water” guess. But that still did not connect even with Rhine River on my sheet.

Initially I had written the proper names of the water bodies first, and then the type of water body next. That meant my sheet had Michigan Lake instead of Lake Michigan. I finally switched that around to its normal name, and then recalled that “Lem” was the last answer and was done in a minute.

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.

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.

Well all of these belong in the “common things occur commonly”.

I struggled with the ORANGE to NICE connection since I know both of those places, but obviously they are not that far apart. It took me a while to get to Oran and it was only a lucky Google that got me there. There were a lot of different cities available in those groupings.

I too had WATER from the get go but had nothing else to back it up than there was WATER between ALL of the cities. “That could never be the answer”, I remember saying to myself. I have made too many submissions based on an “educated guess” and they are almost invariably uneducated.

Then I tried to tease ROLLS out by making the Erie Canal/Mohawk River be Lake Ontario (thinking maybe that it was the feeder – hey I was desperate for a word).

Finally I got off the Mohawk/Ontario, etc and figured the more famous body was Erie Canal but still got nowhere. FINALLY someone told me to essentially change my initial thinking and remember a recent mechanism and that was it. So, more than a nudge but perhaps just short of an actual push.

This mechanism is getting way too popular, it will; probably go into hiding for a few months and then come back to haunt us. The Mx for the MGWCC though… that is new and if I didn’t see that one again for a few years I would not be unhappy. My head is still reeling.

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.

If you are interested in history, learning about the building of the Barge Canal which became the Erie canal is fascinating. A lot of manual work went into the digging only to have it bypassed by the railroads almost as soon as it was completed.

And Thursday at about 5 pm when I told my wife about the meta and she had her normal eye roll, she said "water". Three days later when I had to confess the answer was "water" I got the wifely "I told you so" look.

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.

This also stumped me until I thought it might be distance when traveling by river. I think I used the Google Maps “path” feature to laboriously trace the path down the Rhine, which gave me a distance close enough to 302 miles to confirm. I also found a web site that is designed to help find charter yacht trips between any two points, which helped. And at one point I was converting statute miles to nautical miles.

DrTom wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 8:37 am
This mechanism is getting way too popular, it will; probably go into hiding for a few months and then come back to haunt us. The Mx for the MGWCC though… that is new and if I didn’t see that one again for a few years I would not be unhappy. My head is still reeling.

Well, the mechanism was completely lost on me! I had everything up to it and could not find or even think to look for abbreviating the water bodies. Another lesson! On to the next one!

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!

::: adding to list of great first posts :::

Been following this forum for months but finally created an account to say I was totally convinced the answer was PEARL! I was stuck for a while until I saw that the Mediterranean Sea was broken into smaller seas, including the Alboran Sea which is just north of Algeria. That left me with:

Pacific Ocean
Erie Canal
Alboran Sea
Rhine River
Lake Michigan

A pearl-- something hidden in water! Although it required an unscramble of letters from the given order of meta answers (which is rare), it still had what I call "crossword sense."

WATER?! That's so... boring!

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.

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.

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.

I used the Google Earth Pro Path tracing tool encompassing all twists, bends, and oxbows of the Rhine River between Boon & Basel. It was precisely accurate (to within less than a mile). If we have another geography-laden meta, I'll have my mouse in its holster, ready to draw.

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.

This was the only pair for which I could not match the mileage exactly (I didn't use Google Earth Doh). Fortunately, I just moved on, and when the others pairs lines up exactly, I figured I had Basel - Bonn close enough.

Did not get the correct solution but I see a mechanism that is familiar. This was another elegant Gaffney puzzle. Got part of the way along the yellow brick road but then those darned flying monkeys swooped down on me! Waiting patiently for Thursday at 4:00 pm!!