NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD
Daniel Mauer is a software engineer in Massachusetts. He started solving crosswords with his father when he was growing up and began making them six years ago. Two favorite activities of Daniel and his wife, Sandy, are solving the Times crossword, which they do first thing every morning, and taking road trips. The latter was the inspiration for this puzzle. — W.S.
ACROSS
1 ‘‘Meet the ____’’
(baseball fight song)
5 Pertaining to any of
five Italian popes
12 Small rodent
18 To be, in France
19 ____ Jay Hawkins, rock pioneer who wrote ‘‘I Put a Spell on You’’
20 Hardly a team
player?
21 Nickname for 114-Across coined by John Steinbeck
23 Large rodents
24 Corpse ____ (morning-after cocktail)
25 German surname part
26 One of the Guccis
28 At the top
29 Skip or drop
31 Down-to-earth
32 Cool
35 Opposite of a breeze
37 Instruction for some Thanksgiving cooking
38 ‘‘Downton Abbey’’
countess
39 Colorful natural attraction along 114-Across
43 An awful state to
live in
46 Twitch user, perhaps
47 Spanish : -ando or -iendo :: English : ____
Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 4,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year). 48 Attempt to grasp, as a complicated situation
49 Car-pooling inits.
50 Cuisine that includes
gochujang paste
52 ‘‘Go ahead and ask’’
56 Pastis flavorer
58 Peridot, for one
60 Smart, say
61 Bad stat for a QB:
Abbr.
64 Left
65 Tall, curved attraction
along 114-Across
69 Gear for gondoliers
71 Trafficker trackers,
for short
72 Legend
73 Animal in the genus
Bos
74 Following along
75 Roux ingredient?
78 B3, nutritionally
82 Beverage with a ‘‘New England’’ variety
83 Gone to press?
86 Booked it
88 Phrase one might yell at the screen during a horror film
90 What roots are, to
powers
92 Graffitied artistic attraction along 114-Across
94 Summers in la cité
95 ____ Austin, Biden’s
secretary of defense
97 Bugs
98 Jazz bassist Carter, who has appeared on more than 2,200 recordings
99 Being treated, in a
way 101 A whole can of
worms?
102 Mamas’ mamas
106 Bug
107 Bad review
108 Component of
lacquer thinner
110 More far out
114 Theme of this puzzle, which winds its way nearly 2,500 miles through all the shaded squares herein
117 Wishy-washy
response
118 Captivate
119 The Panthers of the
N.C.A.A., familiarly
120 Art in the Television
Hall of Fame
121 Dislikes and then
some
122 Things sometimes named after presidents
DOWN
1 One of 50,460 in the
Chunnel
2 Actress Barrymore,
great-aunt of Drew
3 Famed fountain of
Rome
4 Half step, in music
5 Character seen on a
keyboard
6 Bile
7 Obsequious
8 Sun deck?
9 ‘‘That’s my cue!’’
10 Actress Long
11 Component of a bridge
truss
12 Positive results of
some strikes 13 TV 6-year-old who attends Little Dipper School
14 Lead-in to ‘‘com’’
15 Bit of writing on
Twitter or Tinder
16 Natural conclusion?
17 Some mil. officers
19 Abbr. on many streets
in Quebec
20 ‘‘Holy ____!’’
22 Pass
27 Not mainstream, for
short
30 Sierra ____
31 1990s film with a famous wood chipper scene
32 Word with a wave in
Oaxaca
33 Classic Camaro
34 Grant ____, northeast terminus of 114-Across
36 Kind of tape
37 $100 bill, slangily
38 Underwriting?
39 ‘‘What malarkey!’’
40 Paid penance
41 Site of a U.C. in the
O.C.
42 Muscle-bone
connector
44 Verb in Poe’s ‘‘The
Raven’’
45 Trece menos doce
51 Many a Hollywood
worker Brownish-yellow hue
Big ____ Monogram in the 2016
presidential election Puts away Suffragist and abolitionist Abby ____ Alcott Georgia, e.g. 53 54 55
57 59
62 63 One of two circling
the earth
65 Decorates deceptively
66 High part of a deck
67 Bon ____ (fashionable
world)
68 One-named New Age
musician
70 Mower’s trail
74 Means of electronic communication with restricted access
76 Ending with cash or
front
77 Self images? 79 Stevenson of 1950s
politics
80 They may be ridden
to victory
81 Some co. name
endings
83 Santa Monica ____, southwest terminus of 114-Across
84 Golden rule
preposition
85 Speedskater Kramer with nine Olympic medals
87 Stir in 89 String or integer, in 104 Singer O’Day
programming 105 Bad messages to
91 Brand with a bull in send to the wrong
its logo person
92 Critical warning 107 Tap-in, e.g.
93 Some scores in 109 140, in old Rome
horseshoes 110 Covid Data Tracker
96 ‘‘My Name Is Asher org.
____’’ 111 New Deal power
99 Offer one’s two cents agcy.
100 Deprived 112 Fools are often seen
101 You usually do at its start: Abbr. this lying down by 113 Peaceful, informally yourself 115 Partner of only
103 Naval ‘‘Negative’’ 116 Posed for a portrait