"Heads and Tails " June 9, 2023

[linsocalm]

Ashore! Saw a few rabbits before reaching the busy beach. Longest streak since starting these puzzles a little over a year ago.

[ricky]

Ashore. Got nowhere last night, had an aha moment while getting ready for work this AM.

[Deb F]

On shore! Tried to make this really difficult but zoned in this morning.

Have a great weekend, Muggles.

[Bob cruise director]

Good Friday morning muggles

First we welcome our newest muggle - Yoda66. Great to have new muggles

And we have 4 on the ship and 117 on the shore. Based on the comments, it is a "now you don't see it, now you do" meta from Mike

As I have been entering the ship/shore status, cars have been slowing down and stopping in front of the house. We have a young great blue heron who has been wandering around our yard all morning. He is searching for chipmunks and I wish him good luck.

Tomorrow's status will be published at 7 am ET as I will be out all day. Sunday we will be back to normal.

Next week the lovely and talented @Wendy Walker will be your cruise director as the missus and I will be making our second attempt to go to Nova Scotia. Last month our venture was derailed by illness and we hope that the fires and smoke will have abated this month.

[Justmarebear]

On the beach after a refreshing swim to shore…another mike shenk gem

[CPJohnson]

Good grief. After trying 8 things that didn’t work, #9 finally occurred to me. On shore, gasping for breath, @Bob cruise director.

[Tom Shea]

Filled in the grid last night. Swing and a miss on the first try -- a path rabbit hole which I suspect many went down. Got it over morning coffee. Anxiously awaiting the 5 o'clock hour and the martinis.

On shore in the mountains of VT and happy for once for rain, as the soot is not here, but would appreciate a temp above 50. Not to be today.

[JimJim]

On shore.

[Bob cruise director]

After stumbling and fumbling, working extremely hard to dig more rabbit holes than necessary, I am on the shore. I have this great temptation to drop a spoiler here from a movie but I will resist.

[ZooAnimalsOnWheels]

I'm safely ashore after a shallow rabbit hole. This was a fun one.

[turbotron]

That was a challenging grid for me, and looking for the metanism has left me scratching my head (and tail?). Maybe work taxed my neurons too much this week, but I'm looking forward to seeing my mega-smart friends on the Zoom this afternoon for a nip of brain tonic!

[SoccerMom]

Count me ashore today after solving the first two steps and then staring for far too long before the "Duh!" moment hit. Great puzzle with enough difficulty to be a challenge but not too hard to be discouraging.

[JoeS]

Ashore. Funny how sometimes the easy ones are hard and vice versa. Saw this quickly, unlike the past couple of weeks.

[31 Down]

OFF TOPIC

Don't normally do the NYT early week but a friend recommended the Tuesday's (6/6) puzzle. It was a FANTASTIC construction. Think everyone here would appreciate it!

[MaineMarge]

Happy to be ASHORE, steered all the way by solving buddy @Bob cruise director.
He’s quite happy with this solve too

[Janet]

I may be at the TAIL end of the cruise ship departure, but I'll soon be resting my HEAD on the BEACH. (No spoilers here, just being silly.)

[pjc]

Finally on shore! Took quite a while for me figure this one out.

[ImOnToo]

On shore!
Did it during lunch. A delightful swim!

[CopperRiver]

Got steps 1 and 2. Now what? Staring at puzzle....

Ok - 2 minutes later...got it!

[BarbaraK]

On shore! Smoke is really not too bad here in SE PA. In Muggle social news, Barbara K and I had a wonderful lunch together yesterday! The waiter was reluctant to bring us the bill because he said we seemed so deep in conversation. You can imagine the topic.

I think the smoke followed me back to Virginia. Pretty bad here today. But great visit with Wendy, and I’m on shore, so life is good.

@BarbaraK how bad was the smoke from the air?

Not as bad as up in New York, but definitely restricting visibility. The most unusual thing was the way it was all the way down to the surface. Today it’s more normal; there’s a later from 3000-8000 feet up, but at ground level it’s pretty much clear.