The puzzle is to reconstruct a series of Scrabble plays from clues for the words played and the full order of tile draws during the game. The first letters of all the clues spell THAT VERY FIRST O WILL BE DOUBLE-PARKED, telling you how the first word is positioned.
The answers to the clues are as follows:
| 1: | To an approximation | AROUND |
| 2: | Have a pigout | FEAST |
| 1: | Am able to | CAN |
| 2: | Train part | CAR |
| 1: | Very cool | NIFTY |
| 2: | Exactly nothing | ZERO |
| 1: | Road adventure | TRIP |
| 2: | You find it in dead trees | ROT |
| 1: | Faint ring | TINKLE |
| 2: | In need of being returned to the library | DUE |
| 1: | Recovered | WELL |
| 2: | Screwball | ZANY |
| 1: | The present tense of might | MAY |
| 2: | Obscured by fine particles | DUSTY |
| 1: | Willpower | DRIVE |
| 2: | I and others | WE |
| 1: | Landlord | LETTER |
| 2: | Let it out online | BLOG |
| 1: | Brio | VIM |
| 2: | Evading | DODGING |
| 1: | Definite article | THE |
| 2: | Oriental game | GO |
| 1: | _____ upon the Congress! | FIE |
| 2: | Bronze component | TIN |
| 1: | Learning opportunity [plus two other words] | LESSON (incidentally also forming LETTERS and TRIPLE) |
| 2: | End goal | OBJECt |
| 1: | Previous lover | EX |
| 2: | A wad of tobacco | QUID |
| 1: | Rest | NAP |
| 2: | Kuwaiti's pilgrimage | HAJ |
| 1: | Eastern-exercise–related | yOGIC |
| 2: | "Drawing ____ his outworn life..." | ANEAR |
If you play the first word Across, the positions of the words on the
board end up being as follows:
If you ignore the Down words and read the Across words, you get the message DRIVE THE ZANY NIFTY CAR WELL AROUND TRIPLE LETTERS DODGING OBJECT. If you follow these somewhat oblique instructions and read clockwise around the Triple Letter Score squares (shown in dark blue above), they spell TRAFFIC PyLON, the answer to the puzzle.