Puzzler of the week

[Scott MacLean]

This week's puzzler:

I was driving down South through Texas on the way to visit relatives who had recently moved to Austin. I hadn't been to Texas since I was in the Air Force in basic training at Lackland Field.

Texas was as I remembered it: The usually long, dusty and mostly empty Texas roads.  I hadn't been paying much attention to the road signs off to the side of the main highway we were on-- they were mostly country road numbers-- when one sign off to the left caught my eye. It was "Golf Road." So, I mused to my wife and kids, "Hey, maybe they're gonna open a golf course out here in the middle of nowhere, in this Godforsaken wasteland! Or maybe Mr. Golf was some famous hero from Texas's great history. Maybe he was at the Alamo!"

Later, we passed another road sign, and I announced to the family, "I know what the name of the next road after this will be." My wife was skeptical. How could two completely unrelated signs, Golf Road and this other one that I had just noticed, predict the third street we were going to encounter? Sure enough, though, we came to that road a few minutes later, and it's exactly as I'd predicted.

There are two possible answers to this puzzler.

This puzzler was loaded with hints, if you were paying attention.

Last week's puzzler:

It was a dark, moonless night in France, 1943, deep within German-held territory. Out of the inky shadows comes Claudette, the beautiful French resistance fighter, followed by three downed Allied crew members, who she must get back into friendly hands. They must cross a bridge, and they know the Germans are not far behind. It's an old, treacherous bridge, and they have only one flashlight among them to see. The bridge can support only two of them at a time. Three on the bridge, and it's curtains.

Pairs crossing can do so only as quickly as the slower member of the pair, because they need the flashlight to see. Each time a pair crosses, someone has to return with the flashlight, until they're all safely across.

Unfortunately, the three downed airmen are injured. Here are the times each person takes to cross the bridge: Claudette can do it in a minute. Major Johnson has a twisted ankle, and takes 2 minutes. Captain Kangaroo got shot up pretty bad. He has to hop on one foot, and it takes him 5 minutes. Colonel Mustard is in worse shape. It takes him 10 minutes to cross the bridge.

Claudette has rigged the bridge with explosives so that their pursuers can't follow. She's about to set the timer."

Here's the puzzler: What's the shortest time she can set and get everyone safely across the bridge before it blows up?

Last week's puzzler answer:

The secret is that you want the fastest people making the greatest number of crossings. So, Claudette and Johnson, who can do it in one and two minutes, respectively, cross together. That takes two minutes.

One of them comes back, let's say it's Johnson, that takes another 2 minutes. Okay, now she's on the good side of the bridge and he isn't.

So now we got the two slow guys on the wrong side of the bridge, along with Major Johnson.

Johnson stays there and the two slow guys hop over the bridge. That takes 10 minutes. Okay, so now we're up to 14 minutes.

Claudette dashes across the bridge with the flashlight-- that takes a minute. She and Johnson cross together. That takes two minutes.

That's 17 minutes. They got across in 17 minutes, when bingo, the bridge blows up!