Our Olympic Adventure, Part V: End of a Streak
Lo, how the mighty has fallen. My uninterrupted streak of New York Times online crossword completions had been in the top ten for close to a year when we left for Washington nine days ago. In fact, I completed the Sunday puzzle in the car (relax, Amy was driving) as we left I-5 and headed northwest to the Olympic Peninsula. That gave me, I believe, 988 consecutive puzzles. I was still solidly in seventh place. I had high hopes of maintaining my streak as we hiked: when I made reservations at the Elk Meadows B&B, Joy Baisch assured me AT&T had coverage at least in the high places throughout the national park, and we were planning to hike up to passes on both Monday and Tuesday. That might put me a few hours behind my usual completion time--I almost always submit puzzles within a couple of hours of their release, at 7 p.m. Pacific time the night before they appear in the Times--but I'd stay on track, and Wednesday we'd be out of the park, enjoying an early dinner...