NYT Spelling Bee

[cathwen]

Good morning!

QB yesterday with help to find—embarrassingly—banana and mammon, my last word. I agree with Langue_doc about today's puzzle—it's like pulling teeth. I finally found the pangram, though, and just made genius.

LB: creamed-debunking. No 2fer yet today, but ciao_yall gives me hope!

Ab_grp, I'll look forward to hearing about the mobile tire installation! As for us, it's The Arches today.

Happy puzzling!

[Langue_doc]

Good morning!

Pangram and above genius. Missed bibelot, tittle, toile--I might have found the last two if I had persevered, but not the first one.

Here are pictures of the ones I missed--nightjar and falcon.

Happy solving!

[ciao_yall]

Morning!

QBwSBB - wild guess at bibelot, last word celeb. LB falcon-nightjar which I thought I made up but turns out it's a thing.

Happy solving!

[ab_grp]

Good morning!

Got to genius with the pangram so far.  Yesterday we needed bee buddy for bibelot, betel, toile.  I would never have gotten the first one.

No luck on LB, and I have never heard of a nightjar! Thanks for sharing the pics, Langue_doc!

Congrats, ciao_yall! Good guesses all around!

The mobile installer basically got here about 40 mins early, while we were eating breakfast, but he also took longer than expected.  Overall, it was a good experience, and I would happily take the trade offs so as not to have to go sit there to wait for my car to get done or have have to husband take me back and forth.  Anyway, he had a little trailer hooked up to his truck, and husband reports that there were two machines inside.  One is used to remove a tire from a wheel (and maybe to put a new tire on the wheel?), and the other is a balancer once a new tire is on the wheel (where they see spin it really fast to see if it wobbles and possibly add weights to it).  It took about an hour and a half for all four tires, and he did it all himself.  The cost was very similar to if I had gone to the tire shop but had an extra $25 service fee for coming out to our place, which I thought was very reasonable.  We scheduled it late the previous afternoon, so very convenient and flexible.  I have only driven the car into the garage so far and will update if the wheels fall off on my way to my vaccine on Monday.  So far, husband plans to use this service when he gets new tires on the truck in half a year or so.

Hope your trip to The Arches was a good one, cathwen!

Happy solving!

[cathwen]

Good afternoon!

QBwH for bibelot, celeb, cootie, lobe, oleic, and toile, my last word. Today I'm at genius with the pangram and hoping to get a bit further before caving and seeking help.

LB: I also had falcon-nightjar, with the last word being a wild guess. No 2fer today so far, but I will persist.

The mobile tire installation was clearly a success! Yay!

Our trip to Arches National Park was fine, except that the very minute we got to the booth to show our entry ticket, it started to rain. And rain. And rain. We had picked out several of the easier hikes described on the Arches web site, but we didn't do any of them. We did, however, drive around and take photos—sometimes leaping out of the car briefly, snapping the picture, and hurrying back in. Even just driving around in the rain, it was still beautiful, so I don't think our day was wasted. Bryce Canyon tomorrow!

Happy puzzling!

[Langue_doc]

Good morning!

QB--found the pangram only because the letters were aligned in a certain way.

Last word was filially which I didn't think was a word, but tried just in case.

whipcords/subdue; couldn't find a mate for horsewhip.

ab_grp, glad to hear that the tires have been installed.

cathwen, sounds like you're seeing large swaths of the country that I've seen only in old westerns.

Happy solving!

[ciao_yall]

Morning!

QBwH for ramify, affray. LB lots of contenders but no 2fers so went for hints and got a bunch. I was close on a few but didn't close the loop.

Happy solving!

[ab_grp]

Good morning!

Got the pangram and to genius so far.   Yesterday we needed bee buddy for mayfly, riyal.

No luck on LB, though I thought I was close a few times.  Congrats, Langue_doc!

Cathwen, we saw much of Yellowstone that way, just driving around and hopping out for pictures here and there when we visited that area, Glacier, and Tetons as well.  We went out to that general region as a very, very large family group (my ex's; but split up into family units to do individual outings, so we had my mother and daughter with us), so there was a wide variety of people trying to experience the higher altitudes and so forth.  That trip was actually the second giant family outing, and the first was to the area that you're in and to Bryce Canyon! We missed that one, but it sounded pretty amazing.  I'm so glad you are enjoying your trip despite the rain and such! Sounds like you are doing as much driving for your trip as we did.  I hope today is wonderful!

Happy solving!

[cathwen]

Good evening!

QB yesterday with help for airily, filially, and friary. Today I made QBABM!

LB: I had showpieces-suburbed. The second word was a desperation guess, and I was surprised when it was accepted. I did not know that suburb could be used as a verb.

Langue_doc, this trip does recall lots of old westerns!

We went to Bryce Canyon today! It is spectacular. This was on our list because Middle Daughter and her family went there last year. She said that when she saw the rock formations (the hoodoos), the beauty of it actually made her cry. And really, photos do not do it justice. We are so glad we went. We rode around in the shuttle bus, hopping off at various points, and we walked one of the easy trails. Maybe next year we'll try for Yellowstone.

One victory today was finding eclipse glasses! I had read about tomorrow's eclipse, but since it will not be very apparent in the Northeast, I didn't pay attention to it. It never clicked in my mind that we will be in the eclipse area when it happens. (If it had, I would have packed the eclipse glasses we already have.) We went several places without any luck, but they were selling them at the Bryce Canyon visitors' center. Whew!

Happy puzzling, and happy eclipse for those of you who will be able to see it!

[ab_grp]

Good morning!

Got to a bit past genius with the pangrams so far.  Yesterday I also made it to QBABM after husband already had.  I think my final word was toll.  Congrats, cathwen!

And congrats on your 2fer! I tried and tried to no avail.  I do have one today, though!

Sounds like a great day, and now I want to visit there!

Hope you enjoy the eclipse! We will be checking it out as well.  We still have ours from a couple years ago and managed to find them, thankfully, but I guess they are giving them out at various places.  One child is directly in the path, so hopefully they have glasses, too.

Happy solving!

[ciao_yall]

Morning!

QBwH needed to remember toil. No 2fer so went to hints to find shipments-serviced, verdicts-shipment but got one today.

Happy solving!

[Langue_doc]

Afternoon!

QB. Last word yesterday was tollbooth.

shipments/serviced; found a twofer today.

Had to cancel the outing I'd organized because of the weather. Today's outing was a rescheduling of the one that was rained out in September.

ab_grp and cathwen, enjoy the eclipse!

Happy solving!

[ab_grp]

Congrats on your QBs and 2fers, Langue_doc! I'm sorry to hear about the rain cancellation for the rain date.  My old area's community day got rescheduled and rescheduled and finally cancelled as well.  Yuck.

The eclipse here was 90 or 95% or so, and we checked it out at a couple different stages.  Pretty neat!

[ab_grp]

Good morning!

Got to QBABM! So did husband.  Yesterday we needed bee buddy for minicam.

I also got a 2fer right away this morning! Yesterday's was whine-extraneous.

Got Wordle, Connections, crosswords done, so now all puzzles except Sudokus are done for the day.  My call last weekend was rescheduled to today, so that's a good thing.

Happy solving!

[ciao_yall]

Morning!

For the first time in I don't know how long, I stopped at Genius. Hosted a Barbie movie viewing party and got home after midnight so missed the window for SBB. I didn't have ambiance or a bunch of others. LB wore-exhaustion.

QB-3 and a 2fer so far this morning.

Happy solving!