66. Head Out on the Road

[oldjudge]

I forgot to post yesterday but great puzzle Mikey! Your puzzles are the highlight of the week.

[MikeyG]

Oh, and nobody lives on a road called "island" either. I think a couple of those might have slipped in.

[woozy]

Wow. So it was exactly what I thought it was with the exact mechanism I thought it was and for which I would give a 1.5.

But actually doing it .... don't know why but that was just about impossible for me.

it was like being told to walk seven steps and suddenly discovering you have utterly no concept of any number between six and eight. Maybe you could do six plus one or eight minus one neither of those actually do it.

Had to have whimsy spell out S-E-V-E-N; five, six, SEVEN, stop, don't go to eight, do go past six...

[lbray53]

I was resigned to asking for help. when I was typing out what I had so far, I thought of something that I had not tried yet. That gave me the solution.

Nice puzzle!

[MikeyG]

Wow. So it was exactly what I thought it was with the exact mechanism I thought it was and for which I would give a 1.5.

But actually doing it .... don't know why but that was just about impossible for me.

it was like being told to walk seven steps and suddenly discovering you have utterly no concept of any number between six and eight. Maybe you could do six plus one or eight minus one neither of those actually do it.

Had to have whimsy spell out S-E-V-E-N; five, six, SEVEN, stop, don't go to eight, do go past six...

You have a fascinating sense of metacognition (here, maybe meta-metacognition!), and I love reading your reflections on solving metas! They're always delightful and insightful.

[woozy]

Well, *I'd* be happy if I just got the metas off the bat. But that's not to be this week.

I'm batting 4 for 4 with nudges and 0 for 4 without.

[MikeyG]

Some Wednesday nudges if we're stuck!

1. Per the clue for ABBR, we need to look for certain thoroughfare abbreviations in the grid.

2. There are seven of these in all to find!

3. Once you find them, think of the title "Head Out on the Road."

4. We're emphasizing "Head Out on the Road," the first italicized word signaling something, as is the second.

5. The word on here is important, since we're looking directly on top of these street names! See if that, coupled with what "head" likely means, helps you get to your destination!

Mikey G

[Cinny]

Solved! I had the correct mechanism all along, I just didn't realize it. Thanks, Mikey!

[ReB]

Solved finally, though I needed the nudges to close out the solution after plausibly creating a red herring that caused me to trip over the second step.

[CPJohnson]

I needed all the nudges; finally got it. Thanks, Mikey!

[Dow Jones]

Thanks for the nudges, Mikey. It was an entertaining grid and meta.

[Qmark]

I had the mechanism, but a couple of wrong themers had me stuck. Thanks to your nudges, I made it to the finish line. Thanks Mikey!

[hoover]

I got there with nudge 5. I could tell what I was looking for, but there are far too many possibilities, and I ended up finding 9 including a duplicate, even taking 72A into account.
I'm interested in hearing more about 62D though.

[MikeyG]

I got there with nudge 5. I could tell what I was looking for, but there are far too many possibilities, and I ended up finding 9 including a duplicate, even taking 72A into account.
I'm interested in hearing more about 62D though.

And that's fair; I tried to go with the most basic possibilities for thoroughfare abbreviations like ST and AVE (hey, overt hint if you're still solving this on the last day), but some inevitable ones probably did creep in.

I will totally go to a 62D-a-thon! I really like to make sum difference!

[woozy]

3. Once you find them, think of the title "Head Out on the Road."

But the thing is I never, ever, ever found them. I knew they where there. I knew I had to find them. I knew what I had to do after I found them. I even knew *what* they had to be. But I could *not* find them. I just could not find them.