Just outside of Lebanon, Oregon, it appears that a lorry has shed its load of white liquid all over the road.

This could however be foam from the nearby fire engine, which may have been used to douse flames, or perhaps toxic or flammable substances. After all the spillage has been deemed serious enough to require the attention of multiple fire units, police cars and ambulances.

The road has been closed by the scene, and looking a few kilometres down the road, they’ve closed it off fully there as well.

To me the liquid looks like paint, or something else that would leave that sort of puddle. Any ideas?

See our previous post Truck Spillage. Thanks to Michael L for finding this one.

The state of Oregon has not just one, but two of the smallest municipal parks in the whole world.

The first, Waldo Park in Salem, is only 3.6 by 6 metres and only contains a plaque, and a giant sequoia. Yes, one of the world’s smallest parks contains an example of the largest type of tree on the face of the planet.

Mill Ends Park in nearby Portland is contained within a circle 61cm across, which sadly makes it almost completely invisible on the Google satellite shot (Look closely however, it’s situated right inbetween the two roads, and appears as a dark spot exactly in the centre of our thumbnail).

The park was created on St. Patrick’s Day 1948 (apparently to serve as “a colony for leprechauns and a location for snail races”), and despite the odds, in 1971 Mill Ends Park was officially recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s smallest park.

Further reading: The history of Waldo Park and Mill Ends Park at Wikipedia, and our post featuring The World’s Shortest River.

Thanks to John Riggs.

All of a sudden there’s an absolutely enormous Firefox Logo Crop Circle carved into this field in Oregon, where previously there was nothing! Are aliens telling us their browser preferences? Or has Internet Explorer finally been eradicated from the Internet?

In fact this 67 metre wide icon was created by the Oregon State University Linux Users Group to celebrate the launch of Firefox version 2, and to the south of the logo you can see that they’ve also arranged their vehicles spell out “FX2“.

You can read more about the project at the Oregon State University site, and congratulations to Jon Hicks - who is now the designer of the world’s largest application icon!

Amongst several other interesting kite-shadows here at the Lincoln City Summer Kite Festival, Oregon, is the perfect outline of a giant sky-blue teddy bear!

The huge flying teddy is 12 metres long, and you can actually pick one up in your own choice of colour for only 6,000 New Zealand dollars (about 4,000 bucks, or 2,000 quid), although it’s extra to have your own design printed on his shirt.

Hmmm . . . perhaps we could promote our new book with a ‘Google Sightseeing Bear’!

(Shameless plug over.)

Also in this area is the D River, which Oregon reckons is the shortest river in the world - whereas the Guinness Book of World Records states that the Roe River in Montana is the shortest at 61 metres. Either way, I think Oregon is understating the length of their river, as 36 metres (or 3 Giant Teddy Bears) looks completely wrong to me!

Wikipedia: D River, Roe Rover.

Thanks to Jim Martin, Tim Forsyth and Andy.

In 1947 a guy named Art Lacey decided he wanted to buy a surplus B-17G “Flying Fortress” WWII bomber, and with little prior experience, fly the plane from Kansas back to Milwaukie, Oregon.

After an incredible (and highly improbable) sounding journey, Mr Lacey used his new purchase… as a forecourt roof for his gas station.

Today the gas station has made way for the family-run Bomber Drive-In restaurant which still operates here, and these days the bomber is one of only a handful of this type of aircraft left intact in the world.

Thanks to Nathaniel.

Yup, some crazy person actually intends to live in this old Boeing 727 which he’s got up on blocks in his garden, near Portland, Oregon. You can read more than you ever cared to know about his plans over at www.airplanehome.com.

Thanks to Nathan, ian colvard, cheezy and Darren Mckeeman

Home of the Oregon Ducks American Football team is Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon. The central “O” and end-zone “Oregon” is clearly visible in signature yellow on green.

Thanks: John Armitage

Today we are proud to present to you, the 1st Annual* Google Sightseeing Volcano Day! Yes that’s right, we have an entire day of posts lined up entirely devoted to volcanoes.

• Please note: This event may not actually occur annually

To get us started, we have the 3426 metre Mount Hood in Oregon. Snow-capped all year round, the volcano hasn’t erupted since 1782, but is considered potentially active. Mount Hood has eleven glaciers and five ski areas, including the only ski area in the U.S. that’s open 12 months of the year.

Unfortunately, like most of the volcanoes we’ll be posting today, Mount Hood is not shown in high-resolution yet. Maybe by the time we get to the 2nd annual volcano awards…

Thanks to david poznik and sunilonln.