Back home in Baltimore after a wonderful trip to the west coast. Missed the hot weather here but at least my garden seems to have survived and there’s no forrest fires here (yet), though we’ve got plenty of smoke from the fires in Quebec (though not as much as New York). Let’s see what Barb has in store for us this week…
- Title: Mummy’s Home
- Grid size: 15×15
- Number of entries: 82
- Difficulty: Medium (my solve time: 7:32)
Well this will be an interesting writeup as there aren’t really any themers – but it’s not a themeless puzzle. Not sure what this type of puzzle is called, but there are a series of circled letters that progress from N to S to add a letter every other line, resulting in a pattern that both resembles and spells out a pyramid (a “mummy’s home” – ha!):
(Image of partially filled grid to avoid some spoilers for those who might glimpse the blog before solving – greyed/red squares don’t mean anything – just where I happened to have my cursor when I took the screenshot)
A fairly straightforward solve, though with 82 entries and lots of shorter fill it took a bit longer. Also there were a few things that I didn’t get until getting a few crosses.
Canadian content:
- 16A: [Michael of “Arrested Development”]: CERA – I didn’t know Michael Cera was Canadian, but I had a hunch he was for some reason.
- 25A: [Nunavut’s neighbour: Abbr.]: NWT – The Northwest Territories are adjacent to Nunavut.
- 30D: [The Jays’ stadium name, once]: SKYDOME – I still think of it as Skydome, though Rogers Centre comes to mind more and more often now. I still think it’s one of the few domed stadiums that got it right.
- 37A: [The Trans-Canada, e.g.: Abbr.]: HWY – The Trans-Canada Highway (Route Transcanadienne) runs through all ten provinces of Canada, and appears to have a few route options. The main route starts in Victoria and ends in St. John’s (or vice versa, I suppose), passes through nine of the ten provinces, and connects most of the country’s major cities. It appears the ferry between North Sydney, NS and Channel-Port aux Basques, NL is considered part of the route; I assume the BC Ferries line from Tsawassen to Vancouver Island is as well.
- 52A: [Nova Scotia cape that sounds like a kid’s retort]: CANSO – I’m more familiar with the strait having sailed through it in 1989 (if I recall correctly), but the cape seems quite pleasant and they host the annual Stan Rogers Folk Festival which I just added to my bucket list.
Other stuff:
- 27A: [Letters on a ship’s bow]: HMS – Actually, these days most naval ships have their names painted on the stern, and omit the precursor letters (e.g., HMCS, USS, HMS).
- 31D: [Veggie in miso]: UDO – I’ve heard of udon, but they’re noodles, but not udo, so I learned something today.
- 40A: [Pothole filler]: ROAD TAR – I struggled with this one a bit as I’m not familiar with this phrase. Maybe it’s a Canadianism, or possibly used regionally – feel free to enlighten me in the comments.
- 54A: [Wiring professionals: Abbr.]: EES – I would bet that anyone actually doing wiring works for or is told what to wire by an electrical engineer.
Quote of the week:
“There is no fire without smoke but there is often smoke without fire”
– Christine de Pizan