It’s been just over a month since Google added 12 new US cities to Street View, and yesterday we got new imagery in another 13 cities, and interestingly, a US national park! Here’s some of the highlights, including links straight there:

• Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Anchorage, Alaska
• Austin, Texas
• Cleveland, Ohio
• Fairbanks, Alaska
• Little Rock, Arkansas
• Madison, Wisconsin
• Nashville, Tennessee
• Rockford, Illinois
• Richmond, Virginia
• Spokane, Washington
• St. Petersburg, Florida
• Tampa, Florida

Finally, Google have also added imagery for the few roads that run through Yosemite National Park, California, which enables us to see some pretty stunning scenery.

Here’s El Capitan, a 910 metre vertical rock formation that’s a popular challenge for rock climbers, and some spectacular Giant Redwoods living up to their name!

Read the full story at the Google Lat Long Blog, read more about El Capitan and Giant Redwoods at Wikipedia.

Here in San Jose, California we find the bizarre sprawling complex known as The Winchester Mystery House. It is the creation of Sarah Winchester (the widow of gun magnate William Winchester) who began expanding this country farmhouse when she moved here in 1884. Supposedly Mrs Winchester was so terrified of the ghosts of people killed by Winchester rifles that she consulted a spiritualist, who told her:

build a home for yourself and for the spirits who have fallen from this terrible weapon, too. You can never stop building the house. If you continue building, you will live. Stop and you will die.

And build she did - allegedly around-the-clock, without interruption for the next 38 years until her death, Mrs Winchester built, rebuilt, altered, changed, constructed and demolished one section after another. The ‘mystery’ of the house is found in its weird and nonsensical architecture - staircases that lead nowhere, hidden rooms, doors that open on to sheer drops, cupboard doors that open to solid brick walls, and a myriad of secret passages!

Despite an earthquake taking down 3 floors in 1906, today the mansion still comprises 160 rooms, 47 fireplaces, 10,000 window panes, 17 chimneys, 950 doors, and 40 staircases! The Winchester Mystery House’s unusual history, combined with the unsurprising rumours that it is haunted, have firmly planted this place into American popular culture.

You can read more at Wikipedia, check out this birds-eye photo, see a photo of the front or even browse a whole section devoted to the house on Flickr.

Thanks to Jen, Tim, seamus, Tim Derby, Yoshino, Tim, Patrick, Mel Matsuoka, Lady Kalessia, Stephanie, Michelle, Martin, Eric, Chris Branagan amongst many others!

A geologist with the Geological Survey of Western Australia, Dr. Arthur Hickman, was using Google Earth to look for iron ore when he noticed an unusually circular structure within the landscape. After a visit by a colleague this huge dent was confirmed to be a previously undiscovered meteorite crater!

This particularly well preserved crater is some 270 metres across, and despite Mr Hickman’s employers having mapped the area around 20 years ago, until this point had been completely overlooked. Not surprising then that it was named “The Hickman Crater“.

Which all goes to show that there really are still things to be discovered out there, and all you have to do is start exploring in Google Earth! Just make sure you pay close attention to any unusual landforms…

Read the whole story at theage.com.au.

Thanks to Peter.

Just outside of Kelkar in Germany lies a huge nuclear reactor that was ultimately never taken online. The SNR-300 ‘Fast Breeder’ (a neutron reactor that creates more fuel than it uses) was needed since Germany has a limited supply of uranium and wanted to limit imports.

However, by the mid eighties, the disaster at Chernobyl and other political issues meant that development effectively stalled - the building was finished, but none of the radioactive materials were there; the government abandoned it, and the German taxpayer was effectively left with a concrete shell costing 3.5 billion euros.

When a dutch businessman bought the complex in 1995, he decided to turn it into a hotel and amusement park - ‘Kernwasser Wunderland’, which translates rather unappealingly to ‘Nuclear Water Wonderland.’ By far the coolest activity in my eyes has to be the ability to both go inside and free climb up the huge painted cooling tower.

Despite the obvious stigma of holidaying at a Nuclear Power plant, over half a million people visit annually. And if you still have a nagging worry, you can be reassured by their slogan - “this whole complex guaranteed free of radiation!”

Find out more about the facility at AskOxford and Wikipedia.

Thanks to Buuts!

Around this time last year we put together a collection of swimming pools shaped like airplanes.

And, at first glance, this pool in Slovenia seems to fit into that same category. But I wouldn’t recommend going for a dip, as this pool is filled with petrol and designed to be set on fire!

Apparently this flaming pool of death, which is located near Brnik Airport, is used during firefighter training exercises.

But, surely a pool filled with petrol isn’t very good practice for a burning craft? Why don’t they just have a fire training craft like most other airports?

Thanks: Sigurdr

Today is Easter Sunday, and it is the earliest Easter we’ve had since 1913.

In fact, it’s almost the earliest possible date for Easter, which via a very complex calculation falls between March 22nd and April 25th (inclusive). The last time Easter fell on March 22nd was 1818, and it will not do it again until 2285, so unless you’re still around in 2160 for the next March 23rd Easter, today is the earliest Easter of your lifetime.

So to celebrate, we’re found some giant Easter eggs.

Mainau is a private island on the German side of Lake Constance. The island is run as a garden visitor attraction which often features seasonal flower arrangements, and last April they had these large easter eggs in the courtyard.

There’s a ground level picture on Flickr. You can also bore your family to tears with the details on how to calculate Easter and even a date distribution graph over at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Nick.

Whatever is happening on the side of the street here in Chicago, a large amount of money is definitely changing hands between this man and the driver of the car.

Submitter Sean suggested that there may be some sinister activity going on here, and his statement isn’t without basis, as this rather nifty site shows all the crime data for the area, and there do appear to be a lot of drugs offences.

Perhaps you can suggest a more legitimate explanation?

Thanks to Sean.

Update: Google has since removed this image from their database.

Spirit Lake sits just North of America’s most famous active volcano, Mount St. Helens¹.

The most catastrophic eruption of Mount St Helens was in May of 1980, which killed 57 people.

A side effect of this eruption was the largest landslide in recorded history when the north face of the mountain collapsed, knocking 400m off its official height in the process.

But I digress, this post is supposed to be about the lake! During the 1980 eruption thousands of trees which had covered the mountainside were ripped up and deposited in Spirit Lake. Today, almost 28 years later, they’re still there.

The Douglas Fir logs are slowly sinking to the bottom, but it’s a very slow process. Interestingly, the Google Earth image is clearly a composite of two different photographs, one of which must be more recent; across the seam you can see the tree carpet is there in the northern photo, but the majority of logs have sunk in the southern photo².

More info on Mount St. Helens and Spirit Lake on Wikipedia.

Thanks to Adrian.