Somebody must have had a major crush on Gina to go to the effort of creating this massive, brightly-coloured graffiti on a disused highway overpass here in Seattle, that reads “I’m A FOOL 4U. GINA I ♥ U“

Usually when someone goes to the effort of creating a personal message this large and detailed it’s to ask for their sweetheart’s hand in marriage, as we’ve seen several times before. In this case however we have a simple dedication of love¹ executed on an impressively grand scale - which tells us that whoever executed this artwork must really ♥ Gina!

So, who is Gina, and is she still with the person who “hearted” her so much?

Thanks to David Leech.

Last night in the UK saw the start of the eleventh series of popular BBC2 car show Top Gear - so it’s time to finally visit the Top Gear studio and track!

Based at Dunsfold Park in Surrey, the two mile track was built on an old RAF airfield by Lotus engineers.

As seen from the opening credits, the large hanger by the track is the studio, although the large Top Gear logo isn’t there any more (or perhaps this picture was taken before filming). Just next to the studio, you can see the production office of Top Gear, which is, according to the makers, just a portakabin!

A member at Google Earth Community has posted an overlay of the track, so you can get an aerial overview of Gambon and the follow-through, with the Hammerhead sitting at the end of the runway. The lack of visible tyre marks suggests that the images was captured before the ‘Power Lap’ and ‘Star in a Reasonably Priced Car’ features began.

You can find out more about Top Gear and Dunsfold Park at Wikipedia. Sightseeing car fans in the UK can watch the most recent Top Gear again at BBC’s iPlayer.

Thanks to Scott Blair, Shane Ferguson, Justin Flavin, Stu Gowdy, Lee, Patrick, Scott and Matt Wix.

Welcome to the first annual GSS Desert Week! In time-honoured tradition, we’ll mostly be posting about deserts. For about a week!

The Namib Desert in Namibia and Angola forms part of the Namib-Naukluft National Park, and covers an area of 50,000 km². This part of the world has experienced arid conditions for at least 55 million years, which makes the Namib Desert the oldest desert in the world.

The Namib covers much of the Atlantic Ocean coast of Namibia, where the collision of the water-laden sea air and the bone-dry desert air causes immense fogs and strong currents, making this place as notorious for ending the lives of sailors as the more famous Skeleton Coast to the north. There are plenty of shipwrecks to be found in this imagery for those that care to find them!

Away from the coast, this massive desert receives less than 10 mm of rain annually and is almost completely barren, apart from the spectacularly complex dune patterns.

In the eastern part of the desert we find the famous Sossusvlei salt pan, which can sometimes be seen filled with water when a flash-flood fills the Tsauchab river. Note the tourist buses parked in the shade of a tree.

To the south is the Dead Vlei salt pan where even from up here we can spot the “skeletons” of trees which are believed to be about 900 years old - scorched black by the sun and unable to decompose due to lack of moisture.

Perhaps most impressive of all the sights here though, are the mammoth dunes which surround the salt pans. Some of them rise up to 340 metres, which makes them the highest sand dunes in the world.

Check out the photos on Flickr of giant dunes, tree skeletons, and the dunes as seen from in the Dead Vlei.

See Wikipedia for more info on the Namib Desert, the Namib-Naukluft National Park, the Tsauchab, Sossusvlei and the Dead Vlei.

The town of Progreso, Mexico, sits on a limestone shelf that falls away extremely gradually as it gets further out to sea. As a result, when they built a pier to allow cruise ships to dock here, it had to be long. Really long.

Measuring a phenomenal 6.5 kilometers (4 miles), this is the world’s longest pier.

The original pier was completed in 1942, and despite being little more than a two-lane highway, is actually quite nice looking seen from the beach. In this satellite shot you can clearly see where the original construction ends, and the more recent one begins.¹

Cruise ships dock here for a day or two to allow the tourists to visit some of the nearby archaeological sites, and we can see there’s one berthed here at the moment. Tourists need to take a bus to shore, which takes nearly 10 minutes!

The pier also plays a major part in the local container industry - we can see loads of them stacked on the pier - and there’s also a tanker here just now too.

For more long piers, see our previous posts on England’s 2.1 km Southend Pier (the world’s longest pleasure pier) and Australia’s 1.8 km Busselton Jetty².

Thanks to cboone and Michael.

When we last spotted Thomas the Tank Engine he was happily entertaining children on the Isle of Wight. People said things like “Best. Sight. Ever!“, and we all reminisced about the favourite anthropomorphised train from our childhood.

Since those halcyon days, Thomas has relocated to the English seaside resort of Paignton where he has, distressingly, hit hard times.

The creaky blue locomotive now spends his days slumped in a corner at the back of the station car park, where locals report he is often seen glugging from a bottle of diesel and telling the platform attendants to “feck off”.

Thanks to Anthony Houghton.

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.

I wonder what kind of animal left these tracks on these salt flats in South Africa? Are there any animal trackers out there who can identify the creatures responsible?

Part of the National Geographic African Megaflyover Project, this particular image also features some slightly more identifiable tracks, but not left by an animal I suspect…

See our top-rated post of all time - Google Sightseeing Safari - for lots of animals that were still there when the photographs were taken!

Thanks to lepadekor.

We’ve all been there - the camera is on us, and we suddenly feel a burning desire to impress it. Sadly, not everything turns out how we plan.

Take for example this cool customer - he spots the Googlemobile cruising down his street, and decides his patented bicycle ’skid and turn’ manouvre should be executed, maybe with the objective of sending a small puff of dust into the eyes of the unsuspecting driver.

As our intrepid daredevil starts to make the turn everything seems to be going perfectly - but suddenly the stunt falls apart, and moments later he lies in a bizarre tangle with his two-wheeled friend.

As the camera car moves on - rather heartlessly I might add - we see the boy in further distress as he presumably tries to free himself by way of a reverse roly-poly.

As the Google car continues on down the street the poor lad appears to be lying flat on his back, presumably regaining his composure. I do hope he was alright.

Thanks to Jason O and Streetviewfun.