As I mentioned not long ago, I'm starting to run through my hoard of collected markers, and I still have to get through the rest of November. I'm hoping to make a run to either Schuylkill or Bucks County in the next few days to grab one or two, which should give me enough to finish the year.
I've also been a little under the weather - rather more literally than most people. The temperatures have taken a decided downturn in the last few days, and that's having its usual consequences for my pain levels. I'm used to this, but it doesn't lend itself much to getting a lot of things done, and I'm still trying to wrap up the Carbon County book. It's gray, it's cold, and the news is giving everybody headaches.
So, all things considered, I thought I'd do something a little fun this week to try to brighten all of our spirits. I can't promise it'll work, but I'm trying. If you like puzzles, I think you'll enjoy this.
I'm sure at least a few of you are familiar with Wordle, one of the puzzle games hosted by the New York Times. A player gets six chances to correctly guess a five-letter word, and it's harder than it sounds. Another of their games is Connections, which presents sixteen words/concepts and challenges the player to find the common threads between sets of four. These can range from the fairly obvious (for example, shades of blue) to the more difficult (for example, last names of the Avengers) to the 'who the heck came up with this?' (for example, names of countries minus the last four letters).
I do these puzzles (plus a couple others) every evening with Rachel, sometime contributor to this blog and my own personal mini-me. We compare scores and streaks and give each other clues when needed. We were both highly amused by the recent development that allows people to design their own Wordle puzzles, and I thought it might be fun for me to provide Pennsylvania history-themed puzzles for my readers!
First, the Wordle. When creating your own puzzle, you can choose any word between 4 and 7 letters, and I thought this 7-letter choice was perfect for my purposes. (No, it's not "history." It's also not "markers.") The link will open in a separate tab.
Play my Pennsylvania Wordle here!
Now, the NYT website does not, as of this writing, have a function that allows players to create their own Connections game. However, there is a separate website where you can do this, which I learned from Alex Falcone, a trivia buff whom I follow on Facebook. So I checked out the site he uses and created this one. As with the real Connections, the categories range from very easy to difficult, and you'll need to figure out how they're connected to each other. You'll select four items that you think belong in the same category, then click submit and see if you're right.
Play my Pennsylvania Connections here!
I'll share the answers in next week's post, before getting into the topic of the week. Good luck and enjoy!
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
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