While it may look as though 8 large trailers have plummeted nose-first from the sky, they were in fact carefully placed by Frank Bates, who happens to own a nearby RV dealership. Google’s 45-degree imagery gives us a great look at the installation from the air.

This blog post has good images and information about the trailers, and the official website has a bunch of links and a documentary video. The neighbours are less than impressed with this apparent advertising ploy, but Bates is insistent that it is a true piece of art¹ inspired by his visit to Cadillac Ranch in Texas

We visited Cadillac Ranch back in the early days of this site. The satellite imagery hasn’t improved, and while there is now a Street View, it’s sadly from the very early low-resolution systems.

We visited Carhenge – another well-known car sculpture – in our Monumental Wannabes post last year. If you have a few hundred thousand dollars to spare apparently it’s now for sale.

We switch modes of transport briefly for a visit to a monument in Santa Rosa, California, that at first glance appears to be a fuzzy obelisk.

Closer observation reveals that it’s actually constructed of bicycle frames – three hundred and forty of them (and one tricycle) according this Wired article. Created by Mark Grieve and Ilana Spector the sculpture is named Cyclisk and stands almost 20m tall.

Google’s newly-released Street View imagery of Belgium allows us to see another bicycle sculpture in the town of Brakel, which is on the route of the Tour of Flanders spring classic race.

Returning to car art, we move to Sydney, Australia, where a large rock appears to have played a key role in a terrible accident involving a red Ford Festiva.

This is actually a sculpture named Still Life With Stone and Car, by artist Jimmie Durham, and it was created through the relatively simple process of, um… dropping a large rock on a car.

Originally placed near the Opera House, the sculpture was later moved to its current location where a pair of signs help dissuade any unknowing passers-by from calling the police to report the accident.

Sadly, this kind of cruel vehicular torture isn’t isolated – in 2009 we visited two places where cars have been impaled in the name of art.

In Toronto this car appears to have been abandoned for so long that it has been reclaimed by nature.

Commonly known as The Garden Car, it is more officially called the Community Vehicular Reclamation Project. More details can be found in this blog post.

Perhaps the most bizarre vehicular artwork can be found in rural Vermont, in the form of a large concrete gorilla holding aloft a Volkswagen Beetle.

The story behind its creation can be found at Roadside America.

To wrap up, a few artworks about which I haven’t been able to find much information. First, another Airstream trailer which has been converted into a spaceship in a park in Sacramento, California.

In Albuquerque an old Chevrolet has been tiled for some reason, and mounted on top of an arch.

And finally, in Geldrop, the Netherlands, a tiny old Fiat 500 has been bronzed and topped with a statue of a girl – the work of artist Carla Rump.

If you know of any other vehicular art, please post it in the comments. I’d particularly be interested to know if anyone from Stockholm knows if this bus-made-of-cars is visible on satellite or Street View. I really wanted to include it in this post but couldn’t find a precise location for it.

Locations: Australia, Belgium, California, Florida, Netherlands, New Mexico, Ontario, Texas, Vermont / Categories: Other Vehicles, Street Views, Structures, Weirdness

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Windsor

The English Windsor is about 40km west of London. Its Castle, shown above, is justly famous – built by William the Conqueror and still used regularly by the royal family, it is both the largest inhabited castle in the world, and the palace which has been occupied for the longest period of time. We visited it back in 2006.

It bears little resemblance to Windsor, Ontario, which is most often in the news for its dwindling number of car manufacturing plants, and its increasing number of casinos designed to draw American tourists across the border from Detroit.

Cornwall

Cornwall, in England’s far south-west, is a holiday-makers paradise, with pristine beaches, soaring cliffs and picturesque villages, and is of course home to Land’s End.

It would be hard to find any similarities with Cornwall, Ontario, which has a reputation as a rough-edged town polluted by industrial waste and popular with those wanting to smuggle cigarettes across the nearby US border.

One advantage of the toxic waste dumps is that they can apparently serve as ski hills in the winter!

Waterloo

Waterloo is a municipality in Belgium where the famous Battle of Waterloo saw Napoleon’s French army defeated in 1815. A large monument marks the battleground.

The only battle of note in Waterloo, Ontario, is the one for control of the smart-phone market, with Blackberry-manufacturer RIM being based here.

Athens

The Greek capital of Athens is often called ‘the cradle of Western civilisation’ It is home to countless historic buildings and treasures, and was the birthplace of the Olympic Games.

It bears little resemblance to Athens, Ontario, which is a small farming town of 3,000 people, seemingly most famous for its corn festival held every summer. It also has a number of pleasant murals of rural life.

Tweed

The River Tweed is a bucolic waterway in the Scottish borders region. It attracts anglers from all over the world for its renowned salmon fishing.

Tweed, Ontario, is mainly noted for its amusingly-decorated fire hydrants. It was also rumoured to be a hiding place for Elvis by those who believe his death was faked, although – surprisingly – no real evidence of this has ever surfaced.

Khartum

Khartoum is the bustling capital of Sudan, with a turbulent and often lawless history on the banks of the Nile. Recent development has been spurred by income from the country’s oil wells.

It could in no way be confused with Khartum, Ontario, which is, well … not much really. If anything it’s a ghost town. It is identified on the map and there are couple of roadside signs with the town’s name, but there’s nothing between the two signs that could really define it as a community. How it got the name, we have no idea!

If you have a favourite namesake, send it to us through our submission form and it might be included in a future post!

Locations: England, Greece, Ontario, Scotland, Sudan / Categories: Buildings, Monuments, Street Views, Weirdness

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Our tour begins not on a remote mountainside but in North Beach, an urban neighbourhood at the heart of San Francisco. Not only is San Francisco built on top of 50 different hills, it also lies in one of the world’s most seismically-active areas, meaning slumps and collapses are always an issue. Google’s 45° imagery captured the aftermath of a 2007 slide that came crashing down on several apartment buildings (and a strip club!).

Further down the California coast is the small village of La Conchita, where in 1995 a large mudslide slumped directly behind the town. In 2005, the southeastern portion of the slump collapsed, sending 200,000 m3 (7 million cu ft) of mud and soil into La Conchita, destroying 13 houses and killing 10 people.

In the Los Angeles neighbourhood of San Pedro, Paseo del Mar is a street that has been slowly eaten away from below by cliffs collapsing into the sea. A closer look reveals not only the pieces of the old roadway lying in the rubble, but also the foundations of buildings removed for safety purposes.

Halfway around the world in Crimea, we see where human activity has caused a landslide, as the side of a limestone quarry is falling into the Black Sea.

In 1903, much of the Albertan coal mining village of Frank was buried when the entire east face of Turtle Mountain suddenly collapsed, sending 90 million tonnes of rock into the Crowsnest River valley and killing 90 people. Over a century later, the scar is still as plain as day, and the Frank Slide is a major tourist attraction. The current highway through the valley was built right through the middle of the slide’s debris field.

The 1987 Val Pola landslide in the Italian Alps obliterated five villages and six hamlets. Heavy rainfall accelerated erosion on the mountainside, causing a large fracture on the east side of the mountain. Most of the valley’s residents were evacuated a day before the slip occurred, but what was not expected was the resulting rock avalanche ploughing into a nearby lake and sending a massive wave of water 2 km up the valley, killing 22 people.

Often, landslides and landslips falling into river valleys end up damming the rivers and creating new lakes. Two recent examples are Bolivia’s Laguna Verde, where the slope was destabilised by excessive coca farming, and Dominica’s Miracle Lake, created in 1997.

All of these slides serve to remind us that in the battle of man and nature, nature usually wins.

Locations: Alberta, Bolivia, California, Italy, Ukraine / Categories: Natural Landmarks

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Reader Dave Schubert identifies the plane as being in an engine test stand. According to Google Earth’s historical imagery feature this image was taken on the 27th of June 2010, which is interesting as Concorde was retired in 2003 – so it’s perhaps a little strange that they would be testing the engines.

Next, to Canada’s busiest airport, Toronto Pearson. However, we’re looking at a very American icon – the Blue Angels aerobatic team.

More formally known as the Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, these planes were spotted by Kevin Hodgson. The six F/A-18 Hornets are seen parked near to a seventh plane, a two-seater F/A-18B that can be used as a backup plane if necessary. We can also see the C-130T Hercules nicknamed Fat Albert, which carries support personnel, spare parts and technical equipment.

You can read more about the Blue Angels at their official site, and at Wikipedia.

Given the recent situation in Libya, it may be a good thing that eight C-130 Hercules that were ordered by the Gaddafi regime are stuck in the southern US state of Georgia.

The desert-camouflaged planes were ordered and built at this Lockheed plant at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in the early 1970s. However before they could be delivered, the US imposed sanctions on Libya.

Because they are technically the property of the Libyan government, the planes cannot be moved, so they sit on flat tires, surrounded by weeds in the distant reaches of the base. Thanks to Cafe de Unie, SecretAgent Man and Jonathan Peterson for sending this one in.

Unused planes can be a problem for any airport, though at Hot Springs in Arkansas they park them a little more neatly and efficiently than they do at Manas Airport in Kyrgyzstan or Wilson Airport in Kenya. Thanks to ‘Me’, nga and Bryan Johnson for these.

Moving on to crashed planes (nervous flyers should probably stop reading at this point!), we start with a couple of real downed planes. This Curtis C-46F Commando crashed in November 1979, shortly after taking off from Churchill in northern Canada.

It was reported to us by Lindsay Marshall, and airliners.net has some good pictures. Apparently the inside has been setup with a picnic table, and is a local tourist attraction.

Just a few months ago, two people unfortunately lost their lives when their small plane crashed into Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin. New satellite imagery just happened to capture a crane recovering the wreckage. Thanks to milwhcky for reporting this one via Virtual Globetrotting.

Hollywood is fond of creating its own plane crashes, and the set from 2005′s War of the Worlds is now part of Universal Studio’s tour, as shown in this YouTube video. Thanks to Anthony Moore for the suggestion.

The studio spent $2million to bring an unused 747 to the lot, carefully broke it apart and then built the houses affected by the crash in the movie. Google’s 45-degree imagery allows us to see the set from different perspectives, including engines lying next to a house, seats in the ripped apart cabin, and the charred tail section.

Another apparently horrific plane crash was spotted by Bryan Johnson at the former Alameda Naval Air Station near San Francisco.

Some of the 45-degree imagery was apparently taken on a different day, and reveals crowds of people and emergency vehicles.

However, we can also see lots of technical equipment, including a camera crane, so it’s clear that this isn’t a real crash, and Geek.com reveals that it is, in fact, a set for the TV show Trauma.

We had previously featured Alameda for its role in a Matrix film, though personally I’m hoping that someday we’ll see images of the Mythbusters team who film regularly at this location.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this post. Please use the suggestion form if you know if interesting locations that you think we should feature.

Locations: Arkansas, California, England, Georgia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Manitoba, Ontario / Categories: Abandoned, Aircraft, Movie Locations, Shadows

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Rude messages

Not everything can make the cut obviously, but things like this painting of a naked woman on top of this building near Phoenix, AZ are certainly eye-catching. Thanks to GSS reader prmckinney for sending it in.

Henry sent us a friendly message in New Zealand that, well, gets directly to the point.

Or you could be like this guy near Austin, Texas who loves to express his satisfaction with American president Barack Obama! Make sure you notice the detail of the middle finger! Thanks to Chris S.

Lookalikes

At times just the strange artefacts of Google Maps itself are amusing! Take a look at this rather unfortunately shaped road near the Newcastle FC stadium sent to us by Chris. On the more natural side, Pamela sent us this lake in Alberta, Canada that looks, well, pretty much exactly like a rat.

Signposts for the sky

Rooftops can be an easy target for “on-the-fly” messaging. Marc sent us a link to a huge “Amazing Race” finish line painting on the final approach path to LAX. The wildly popular American reality show has used Los Angeles as the finish line before, but it does seem odd that they actually put a channel and time on it. Maybe it’s just a huge billboard instead?

Quetzal sent us the letter Z carved into the desert next to a highway in Coahuila, México, which is apparently the sign of a notorious Mexican Drug Cartel. On a lighter note, Dawn sent us a link to this extravagant field maze that takes the shape of a steam locomotive!

Mystery circles

Sometimes the most interesting things we see on the ground however are circles. You have the obvious crop circles around the world, but then there are perhaps stranger things out there. For example, any ideas what this little circle in the desert sent to us by Mastboy could be?

Or perhaps this circle off the coast of the United Kingdom? Maybe it could be a beacon of some kind? Thanks to scotty for the link!

In a more mysterious entry, a series of strange circular features have been sent to us from deep in the forests of Maharashtra in India. They’re remote, they’re large, and no one seems to really know where they came from!

The four circles appear to be man-made due to the perfect circular shape and similar size, but no obvious pattern or purpose can be seen. One of the most popular theories are the circles are some sort of ancient water reservoirs, but one could argue how much water needs to be collected in the middle of a monsoon-ridden country!

Some more imaginative people think that ancient aliens visited and made the circles, but they aren’t really a patch on traditional crop circles though.

Even the local villagers in Kumbhale aren’t sure where the circles came from, even though one of them is practically on their doorstep.

Another theory suggests that the circles are “strikingly” similar to meteorite impacts, but the rims of these circles do not appear to share the same crowning effect that occurs near other true craters – and there haven’t been any meteorite fragments found here (although this could perhaps be due to erosion from the monsoons we mentioned).

For some discussion on the circles, including ground level photos, check out this link. What do you think they are? Thanks to Sandesh for sending in this intriguing suggestion.

Locations: Alberta, Arizona, California, India, Mexico, Morocco, New Jersey, New Zealand, Texas, United Kingdom / Categories: Crop Circles, Large Type, Movie Locations, Stadiums and Sport, Weirdness

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No matter how big or small your town is, every year people must apparently be made aware that there are other people there who are graduating. For example, one wonders if the residents of Major, Saskatchewan (most recent census population: 67) would have been aware of such a momentous occasion in 2009 if it hadn’t have been painted on the pavement of the main street?

One way to broadcast your cohort’s sheer awesomeness is to tag your local dilapidated tourist attraction. On the left in Creston, British Columbia, we see that Grad ’09 has successfully claimed this old grain elevator, one of just five such elevators left in the province. On the right, we see that Grad ’06 (along with many others) have laid claim to Greenwood, BC’s famous Tunnel of Flags, where the flags of every country on Earth have been painted on the side of an abandoned early 1900s road tunnel. Hey, now, just because it was covered in paint already…

Often, graffiti battles between different classes break out, such as on this water tower in Wilkie, Saskatchewan. Apparently prized for both its prominent visibility and the difficulty of getting to the top, we can see a turf war has broken out amongst the classes of 2007, 2008, and 2009. One class has even resorted to calling the ’09 grads “dumb”; presumably this brilliant quip was the knockout blow.

The natural environment for grad tags is the vaunted overpass, where thousands of vehicles each day can be reminded about graduation time. Some classes invest more time than others; rather than just spray paint on the side, each year this overpass in Sydney River, Nova Scotia is repainted in full with a new design by students from Riverview High School in neighbouring Coxheath.

You don’t have to live near a high school to find grad tags in Canada. Even along the most remote stretches of highway, one can find messages displayed in high-visibility areas for travellers to see. Deep in the northern Rocky Mountains, Pine Pass is an hour from the nearest school and even still is covered with graffiti of all sorts, such as this message from Grad ’04.

One of the densest accumulations of grad tags may be a stretch of Highway 10 just outside of Flin Flon, Manitoba. Flin Flon lies on the thinly-soiled Canadian Shield, which means many highways in the region are incised directly into the bedrock. The open rock cuts are ripe for graffiti, and the highway leading south out of Flin Flon is filled with names and messages from various graduating classes dating back decades.

The ultimate grad tag paradise, however, may be the colourful Kerrobert Graffiti Barn in western Saskatchewan, where every year since 1977 the grad class of Kerrobert Composite School have taken over an entire barn at the north entrance to town and given each student their own slice of the edifice.

What the… hey, Ken, quit hogging all the attention! This barn was supposed to be for Grad ’09, not Grad ‘41!

Locations: British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan / Categories: Large Type, Rudeness

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Derby Line, USA

The small American village of Derby Line, Vermont actually lies north of the 45th parallel, which is the border between the United States and Canada. The village was first settled back in 1795, when surveying techniques were crude at best¹, resulting in a nearly quarter of a mile error. When the borders were finally adjusted south to their proper locations in the mid-1800′s, Derby Line was reduced to a tiny geographic size of 0.7 square miles (1.8 km2).

Concerned about illegal immigration, the U.S. Border Patrol has tried to close streets which have historically run together with those of neighbouring Stanstead, but they have so far remained open.

If residents cross the border to either country, they’re required to report their citizenship and pay their duties upon their return. Frequent questioning and searches are a normal way of life. Some houses even sit directly on the border itself!

The Haskell Free Library and Opera House was purposely built on the border back in 1904. It was intended for use in both countries, but with today’s heightened border security library guests are required to park on their respective sides of the building (in their country) and sometimes have to report to customs before even entering.

There is a thick black line on the floor that represents the border between the two countries. A note on the library’s website offers this bit of friendly advice for folks who don’t take the line seriously,

“First time visitors and old friends of the Haskell Free Library and Opera House must be aware that the border between Canada and the United States that runs through our building is real and it is enforced.”

According to the picture, it’s entirely possible to read one side of your book in the United States, and the other side in Canada.

© Copyright Haskell Free Library and Opera House and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Bristol, USA

The state line between Virginia and Tennessee often gets lost between the cities of Bristol and Bristol. That’s right; two cities with the same name share the same border in two different states! To be honest, these two cities can really be thought of as one with two governments. In fact, they both share the same downtown district without very many signs that show the actual border along the way.

The cities of Bristol are divided by State Street, which happens to be the border for most of the town. On one side of the road you’re in Virginia, and the other side you’re in Tennessee!

There are some signs located around town to indicate the border between the two states, including this one over State Street which lists the two states on the bottom corners.

The Tennessee side of Bristol is also the home to Bristol Motor Speedway, a 1/2 mile racetrack that is home to numerous NASCAR events throughout the year. The facility is known for being one of the few that routinely sells out all 160,000 seats in advance each year. No wonder it looks more like a stadium than racetrack.

Bristol also claims to be the “Birthplace of Country Music” since it was where the first recordings of country music were made. Maybe that explains the huge guitar we found on the side of the road?

Calexico, USA and Mexicali, Mexico

Being quirky doesn’t always mean dealing with the border itself; sometimes you can just split the name like they did in Calexico and Mexicali!

The Mexican city of Mexicali (MEXIco+CALIfornia… get it?) is the northernmost city in Latin America and the border opposite of Calexico, California (CALifornia+mEXICO… we know you got that one!). As you can see from the satellite imagery, the much larger Mexicali is home to over 900,000 people, and its little sister Calexico just thrives on being across the border from such a large population.

This whole area is supposed to be the Baja desert, but in the early 1900s the sand was converted to farmland with the help of new canals made by both Mexicans and Chinese labourers. Some of the canals are connected to the nearby Salton Sea.

From above, Mexicali looks every bit as busy as it is on the ground. One of the most famous features has to be this roundabout known locally (and translated to English) as the “Circle of Death“. The name comes from the fact that, at best, traffic laws are only very loosely followed.

As with any typical U.S./Mexico border town, security is taken very seriously. Take a look at this long straight wall that marks the border between the two countries.

While this post focuses on North America, there are hundreds more quirky border anomalies around the world. Where’s your favourite?

Locations: California, Mexico, Quebec, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia / Categories: Buildings, Stadiums and Sport, Street Views, Weirdness

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Whether they’re big or small, year-round or just for a weekend, carnivals and fairs draw in people of all ages. Some fairs are positively massive, such as the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, which takes place every August.

Many carnivals are small, travelling affairs, setting up in local parking lots or neighborhood parks for a two or three-day shot before moving on. Put it in a really small town, and it can shut whole parts of a town down for a day or two, as we see here in remote Snow Lake, Manitoba, where the main street has been completely taken over by the fair.

Carnival attractions are a popular feature along tourist boardwalks, such as the Santa Monica Pier in California. The Street View trike made its way down the pier to catch many of the sights of Pacific Park, the oceanfront amusement park located right on the pier.

Here, we get a great close-up look at some classic carny games like the ring toss, balloons and darts and the ever-infamous milk bottles. Here are some tips for you marks out there: the rings don’t fit the bottles, the balloons are underinflated, the darts are dull, and one of the bottles is often weighted down. Ha, ha, we’ve ruined the carnival industry forever!¹

A good carnival is built around rides. Of course, the ferris wheel and the bumper cars are standard attractions, like the ones at this beachfront resort in Eforie Nord, Romania, which looks pretty solid.

But then there are the sketchier carnivals, where the rusty rides may be covered in knock-off Disney and Looney Tunes characters, or showing far too much rust, or just look underwhelming. Take, for example, the world’s lamest karting track. Or this unenclosed spin-‘til-you-vomit ride. Or this delightfully rickety dragon boat. Alto, indeed.

Alas, all good things must come to end, and eventually after years of use and abuse every carnival ride is sent to the junkpile. Sometimes, they don’t even get that. Just look at this string of old rides left to rot in a Mexico City alleyway.

Oh, Daisy Duck, we feel your pain.

Locations: California, Manitoba, Mexico, New York, Ontario, Romania, Texas / Categories: Crowds, Street Views, Theme Parks

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In an effort to attract families, this park features both a carousel, visible in the north-west corner of the stadium grounds, and a ferris wheel with ball-shaped cars.

Home to the Tigers, there are feline statues and motifs all over the building, including this 4.5m tall figurehead at the entrance to the stadium, flanked by two giant baseball bats. Note that the struts holding up the name sign are also bat-shaped!

The blue tank in centre field is a large fountain which gives elaborate displays between innings and after every Tiger score. Note the vehicles in each corner – the fountain is usually sponsored by one of the car manufacturers for which Detroit is renowned.

Unlike football stadiums and multi-purpose arenas, which tend to be quite generic, baseball stadiums provide architects and teams with much more freedom to add unique features to try to make their buildings attractive to the ticket-buying public.

A construction boom in the last couple of decades saw a trend towards smaller ‘retro’-styled parks topped off with design elements which range from the whimsical to the spectacular. The first of these was Oriole Park in Baltimore.

The stadium was built on former train yards owned by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and is officially called ‘Oriole Park at Camden Yards’. A former B&O building dominates the view from much of the park, and stretches the length of Eutaw Street which is closed on game days, with cheap tickets allowing access to standing areas with a view of the field.

When a home run lands in the street, the spot is marked with a plaque. See if you can also find the two orange seats inside the stadium that mark the locations of famous home runs!

There are two American League stadiums with retractable roofs. In Seattle, the satellite image of Safeco Field¹ shows the 3-section roof open and the infield apparently set up for some kind of corporate function, with tables and chairs and a small stage. When open, the roof is partly cantilevered over the train tracks which run past the stadium. Note that the sponsor’s huge logo is clearly visible whether the roof is open or closed.

Unlike virtually all other domed stadiums, the roof here does not fully enclose the facility to allow heating or cooling, it merely serves to protect it from the frequent rain that occurs in the Pacific Northwest.

Toronto’s variable seasons also make a domed stadium a necessity. With interesting timing, the satellite images caught the Rogers Centre²roof partway through the 20-minute rotational process of opening (or closing), showing the smallest of the segments on the west side of the building.

We also get an unusual perspective on the CN Tower, formerly the world’s tallest building, and one of the earliest sites visited by Google Sightseeing.

In New York, the new Yankee Stadium sits across just to the north of the recently-demolished original 1923 version.

The Street View images in the area allow us to see both stadiums standing side-by-side, and of course you can use Google Earth’s time slider to see how the sites have changed over many years – see prime parkland transformed into sports facility at great expense!

The focus here is on celebrating the game’s traditions, through artwork, monuments and historical items on display. Perhaps these distract game attendees from the exorbitant $2.3billion construction cost and seats which are some of the most expensive in professional sports.

Of particular controversy are those in the ‘Legends Suite’ – several rows behind home plate where seats have ranged in price from $500 to over $2,000! Opening in the midst of an economic crisis, takeup was slow, and the public perception of this zone fenced off from the surrounding fans was quite poor. As a result Yankees games on television often show many of these seats vacant.

Empty seats are also a problem on the other side of the continent where the Oakland Athletics play in a mixed-use stadium that, in 1996, had 10,000 additional seats constructed. This development – nicknamed Mount Davis after the notorious owner of the NFL’s Raiders – is covered during baseball season so that it doesn’t look so bad on television. The huge tarps, with the Athletics’ logo, are visible on Google’s recent 45 degree imagery.

Just to the south-east, in Anaheim, Angel Stadium is also visible in the 45 degree images. It is an older stadium, having opened in 1966. However, since Disney took over the team in 1996 it has been extensively modernised. Many new features have been added, including two large red caps by the main entrance, and an attempt to bring nature to the ballpark, with a rocky waterfall and trees beyond the centre field fence.

The iconic ‘Big A’ is a 70m tall metal structure that used to support the scoreboard inside the stadium. It was moved to the parking lot in the late 1970s. The ‘halo’ lights up whenever the Angels win a game.

To finish, here are a few notes about the other American League Stadiums.

Fenway Park in Boston is the oldest MLB stadium, and is best known for ‘the green monster’ – an 11m high wall in left field, though the satellite image doesn’t do it justice. (We can however see the grounds crew hard at work, and the field being setup for batting practice.) It also has a red seat marking the landing location of the longest home run, though I can’t find it on Google’s images.

In Kansas City, the Royals play in Kauffman Stadium which features a waterfall and acrobatic fountains which play between innings.

Google’s satellite images show players training on the field in Cleveland.

In Texas, Rangers Stadium is the only ballpark that I’ve noticed has its own heliport – just across the road to the west of the building. The exterior wall of the stadium is ringed with beautiful stone carvings, though they’re hard to make out on the first-generation low-res Street View images.

The Tampa Bay Rays play in a domed stadium which is actually in St Petersburg, Florida.

In Minneapolis, the Minnesota Twins play at Target Field, a new stadium not yet shown on the satellite images, though we can see it – and its dedicated transit station – mostly completed on Street View.

Finally, the Chicago White Sox play at US Cellular Field, which has a huge list of attractions – from luxury restaurants to misting rooms to cool off on hot summer days – though none of them are really visible from above.

Every stadium can be explored in more detail in the appropriate team’s section on the MLB site, and Wikipedia has good information as well.

Part two of this series will cover the National League, including a stadium with – would you believe – a swimming pool!

Locations: California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Ontario, Texas, Washington / Categories: Buildings, Monuments, Stadiums and Sport, Street Views, Structures

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The Palliser Triangle is the name given to the driest part of the Canadian Prairies, constituting southeast Alberta and southwest Saskatchewan. Settled at the turn of the 20th century by farmers and ranchers, dozens of tiny villages sprung up to support these new agricultural pioneers (“drylanders”). Many found that within a generation or two, the semi-arid soil quickly became overgrazed and was prone to periods of extreme drought. While modern farming techniques have helped mitigate the hard times, the exodus of people from the Triangle has been steady for the past few decades, leaving numerous ghost towns listing in the wind.

One of the most memorable ghost towns in the Triangle is Robsart, Saskatchewan. Formerly a bustling town with over 50 businesses in the 1920s, today Robsart’s population is listed as just 15 residents.

Shells of the town’s businesses sit amongst brushes, shrubs, and old sidewalks, such as this former lumber store. This Victorian-style hospital has sat neglected at the edge of town since the 1930s, while the community hall, last refurbished decades ago, still bears the symbol of Canada’s 1967 centennial.

An hour and a bit’s drive to the southeast lie a handful of buildings that represent the modern extent of the former town of Claydon, including a private home that doubles as the area’s post office. Just off to the left lie the ruins of the Claydon General Store.

The southwesternmost locality in Saskatchewan is the ghost town of Govenlock, which boomed in the 1920s as a liquor-trading town near the US border, only to fade away in the following decades. The last of the buildings were demolished in 1990, and today Google’s aerial view allows us to just barely make out the old building foundations and dead spots of grass marking the town’s location. Up close, all that remain are the 1948 community hall, a commemorative plaque, and a lonely mailbox.

Throughout the Palliser Triangle, one can find the relics of days gone by. Near what used to be the town of Loomis, a cluster of homestead buildings sit quietly at the side of the dusty road; a frozen tribute to those that once toiled this semi-arid land. Elsewhere, on a small plot of land near Cadillac, Saskatchewan, an old one-room schoolhouse sits all alone on the undulating plain.

Even towns that are still hanging on have seen better days. From above, one would be hard-pressed to even recognise Orion, Alberta as a town, and drivers passing by on the highway see their fair share of dilapidated buildings. But yet Orion still hangs on; its existence confirmed by the community store, the lifeline of many a prairie town.

Along the railways on the Prairies, it’s common to see Grain elevators. This old elevator in Dollard, Saskatchewan has seen better days, as has the town’s United Church.

Many communities that have survived the hard times have made an effort to preserve regional history, such as Etzikom, Alberta, where a rather unusual museum features dozens of turn-of-the-century windmills that have been brought to the site and restored.

Sadly, there are some places in the Palliser Triangle that have no buildings left to mark their existence, only cemeteries.

Locations: Alberta, Saskatchewan / Categories: Abandoned, Street Views

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