Dotting the landscape here in Mountainville, New York, is a collection of bizarre shapes and interesting shadows. This is actually a huge outdoor sculpture garden called the Storm King Art Center.

Founded in 1960 by Ralph E. Ogden as a gallery for Hudson River School painters, today the 202 hectares (500 acres) of landscaped lawns, fields and woodlands are home to hundreds of sculptures.

New York resident sculptor Mark di Suvero has several pieces here, such as Mozart’s Birthday and Mother Peace (more info and pictures are available at the Storm King site).

Mother Peace, 1970

Di Suvero was in construction as a young man, but after a serious accident started using an arc welder to create large outdoor sculptures incorporating scrap metal and structural steel – like the enormous Pyramidian (this photo at Flickr gives a good sense of scale).

Pyramidian, 1970

Internationally renowned Polish sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz created the seemingly accurately titled “Sarcophagi in Glass Houses” that we can see here (more info and ground-level pic).

Sarcophagi in Glass Houses, 1989

Another American, David von Schlegell, is responsible for several pieces on permanent display here titled “Untitled”, including this one, “Untitled” (ground level picture).

Unititled, 1969

Not wanting to be left out, the UK is represented by the brilliant Andy Goldsworthy, whose 694 metre (2,278 foot) long Storm King Wall can be seen falling into the lake, and emerging from the other side to take a meandering path through the trees (more info and ground-level photo).

Storm King Wall, 1998

There are many other recognisable artworks dotted about the grounds, including Adam by Alexander Liberman and Free Ride Home by Kenneth Snelson, as well as others that I haven’t been able to find any information about, like this large boat-like thing perched on a small island, or this mish-mash of what looks like huge red tubes.

The Wikipedia page on Storm King is short but to-the-point, whilst the official site would have to try very hard to be any more rambling and wordy. There’s a Flickr Pool with some good images too.

Thanks to Ryan, Wayne Citrin and Adrian Likins.

The Arches National Park in Utah, USA, is an area of unique geological formations, most famous for the huge abundance of naturally formed sandstone arches, of which over 2,000 have been formed due to the gradual erosion of the rock.

The most famous of the natural arches here is Delicate Arch, which features on Utah license plates, but unfortunately isn’t all that impressive looking from above.

Landscape Arch on the other hand is impressively big – its span is over 90 metres (300 feet)!

We can also clearly see Natural Arch – it’s the pale saddle shaped one here. I get the impression it’s more awe inspiring in real life!

The National Park features many other fascinating formations, including Balanced Rock, which is described as “a large balancing rock, the size of three school buses”. You can see the shadow of the huge rock in this thumbnail image.

Finally we come to the Fiery Furnace — an area of maze-like narrow passages and tall rock columns which (much like the biblical story from which it gets its name), is easily survivable. As long as you’re on the ranger-guided tour that is.

Also see our older posts on the Rainbow Bridge, Utah and the Devil’s Tower, Wyoming. You can read more about The Arches National Park at Wikipedia or see ground level pictures at Flickr.

Thanks to Cortney Moody, Jeff Alu, Jens Kilian, Jens Kilian, Michael Lustig, Roland Bock, woowoowoo, Jason Wolfe, Stuart and Steve Bryson.

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!

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!

Following on from January’s World’s biggest passenger ships post, today we’re going to be looking at the largest aircraft carriers on the water. These warships act as mobile airbases, allowing aircraft to be launched as close to the theatre of war as possible.

Starting with the largest, the undisputed Queen of the seas is the USS Enterprise, which takes the title of being the largest naval vessel on Earth (or water!), with a massive length of 342.3 metres.

Enterprise is moored up alongside the almost-as-large USS Harry Truman and Roosevelt. Like the other seven of the Nimitz class carriers, these are 333m long. Roosevelt, nicknamed ‘Rough Rider’, was responsible for nearly 5000 tonnes of bombs dropped during the first Gulf War.

The Naval Station at Norfolk, Virginia, where these three ships reside when not on active duty, is actually the largest naval base in the World, with 75 ships calling it home – as well as having, incidentally, a huge amount of car-parking spaces!

The USS George HW Bush is the last in Nimitz class, before the new Ford class carriers start being built, and is named for former President Bush. Costing a whopping $4.5 billion, this 333m carrier is on track to be delivered this year. She is seen here in construction at the Northrop Grumman shipyard, also in Norfolk.

(You can see a Microsoft Live Maps birds eye view of it in construction here, but sadly it still isn’t compatible with Safari!)

Back in 1957, the largest naval vessel ever built was the Forrestal Class USS Ranger, which measures 319m and is capable of carrying up to 90 aircraft aboard.

Ranger is seen here with Forrestal class USS Independence and the Kitty Hawk class USS Constellation, which have all been decommissioned to the Naval Air Station in Bremerton, WA.

Now taking the role of the Sea, Air and Space museum in New York City, the USS Intrepid saw service from World War 2 right through to 1974, including in the Vietnam war, where planes would often be launched from her in intervals as small as every 26 seconds!

In late 2006 Intrepid was dragged out of the Hudson river’s mud (with considerable effort) and transferred to Staten Island for repair work. She is expected to be back on display in September.

The most noticeable of Intrepid’s aircraft is the Lockheed A-12, the precursor to the SR-71 Blackbird which is famed for flying from New York to London in 1 hour 54 minutes! You might recognise the plane from ‘I am Legend’, where Will Smith’s character spends time hitting golf balls from her wing.

She may be just a wee tiddler at 214m (this photo shows a comparison between a Nimitz class ship and the HMS Illustrious), but it would be wrong to not include at least one British vessel! HMS Invincible was decommissioned in 2005, and is seen here at Portsmouth Harbour. She’s definitely going nowhere – you can see her propellers lying on the deck!

She was superseded by HMS Illustrious – found in dry-dock in Rosyth having a refit, which was completed last year. In 2014, the first of the new Queen Elizabeth class carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth is due to enter service, at a much more substantial 274m in length. HMS Prince of Wales will join her in 2016.

Previosuly on Google Sightseeing: Carrier Landing Practice Runway and Landlocked.

Thanks: Andrew, Kevin, tsw and many, many others!