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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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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An exclave is defined as “a territory whose geographical boundaries lie entirely within the boundaries of another territory.” Practically speaking, it is a portion of one territory that cannot be reached by land without first passing through another.

There are several examples of exclaves in the United States. One of the best known (and previously documented on GSS) is Point Roberts, Washington, an area of the state that can only be reached by first travelling through British Columbia, Canada.

The exclave of Point Roberts was created by the 1846 Oregon Treaty, which set the boundary between the United States and British North America at the 49th parallel north — with one exception. Due to various mapping mistakes and confusion over the location of the headwaters of the Mississippi River, the U.S.-Canada border juts northward to include a chunk of land lying north of the 49th parallel. This area, now part of the state of Minnesota, is known as the Northwest Angle.

The Angle (as it’s known by locals) can only be reached via a single gravel road through Manitoba, and visitors clear Customs in both directions via videophone in a small unmanned hut. The total population of the remote, 300 square km (116 square mile) township is 152, and it boasts the only remaining one-room school house in the state.

Just below the 49th parallel, and also cut off from the mainland of the U.S., is Elm Point, Minnesota. Elm Point is remote, uninhabited and roadless, yet satellite imagery appears to show a line cut through the forest at the U.S.-Canada border, presumably for clear sight lines along the border. Who would see any illegal activity along those sight lines is an unanswered question.

Alburgh, Vermont is a pene-exclave of the United States. Now before our dear readers crash the GSS servers thinking a pene-exclave is some sort of French rudeness, a bit of definition: a pene-exclave is an exclave for practical purposes, without meeting the strict definition of an exclave. In the case of Alburgh, the town lies on a peninsula connected to Canada (like Point Roberts and the Northwest Angle) but is linked to the rest of Vermont and neighbouring New York via bridges. These bridges serve as the only road route across Lake Champlain.

Among state borders within the U.S., many exclaves have been created over time by the meandering of flooded rivers. In these cases, legal boundaries remain in force, even though river courses render some areas cut off from the rest of their respective states. Among the most prominent examples are the Kentucky Bend and Carter Lake, Iowa.

The Kentucky Bend is an area of Kentucky that is completely surrounded by the states of Missouri and Tennessee. The Mississippi River passes over a geological fault in this area, and The Bend was formed by a shift in the course of the Mississippi River after an earthquake in 1812. A later surveying mistake (again with surveying mistakes?) while setting the Kentucky-Tennessee border created the division. The 44 square km (17 square mile) area is home to just 17 people. No bridges connect The Bend with the rest of Kentucky, and if you wish to send mail to someone in The Bend, his official postal address is (confusingly) in Tiptonville, Tennessee.

Finally, Carter Lake, Iowa is the only city in Iowa that lies west of the Missouri River. It is completely surrounded by Omaha, Nebraska, and was formed by a flood that straightened the course of the river in 1877. After a set of legal disputes Carter Lake was determined to be part of Iowa, and later became a recreational hot spot, offering casino gambling even though the rest of surrounding Nebraska outlaws it. The town’s utility services come from Nebraska, while children attend school across the Missouri River in Iowa. Travellers in Omaha driving to the city’s airport pass through Carter Lake¹, where signs reading “Welcome to Iowa” confuse many panicked out-of-state visitors.

You can read more about the Northwest Angle, Elm Point, Alburgh, the Kentucky Bend, and Carter Lake (along with a huge worldwide list of exclaves and enclaves) at Wikipedia.

Locations: Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Vermont, Washington / Categories: Natural Landmarks

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Built on floating logs all the way back in 1820, upgraded to tarred barrels in 1884, and plastic barrels in 1978, this is actually the seventh version of the bridge, which despite long periods of closure during its lifetime is today open for you to drive your car over if you’re in the area.

Bear in mind that you’re more than likely to get a little wet though, as the bridge was actually designed to be permanently semi-submerged…

You can read more about the bridge at Roadside America. Thanks to Jel.

Locations: Vermont / Categories: Bridges

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Such a giant beast should easily be visible on the aerial and satellite photographs of Google Earth, it’s just a matter of finding them…

To start with, there’s definitely a blue whale in this Japanese swimming pool, but I don’t think that counts.

The Route 66 landmark Blue Whale slide is so famous it even appeared in Sega’s King of Route 66 video game. More info.

Outside of UC Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory there’s an 85-foot long Blue Whale skeleton. The female whale was washed ashore of Pescadero Beach in 1979, after dying of unknown causes.

We’ve still not found any live whales though! Off the coast of Santa Barbara there’s a 10m long grey blob that could resemble a whale, or more likely a shark. Either way it would have to be very close to the surface to be seen so easily. I’m not convinced.

‘Reverence‘ is a sculpture by Jim Sardonis, which depicts two whales seemingly diving into the grass. The tails are each 12-13 foot tall and made of granite. More info.

Back in Japan, and Ueno Park has more than tails – there’s a life size Blue Whale diving into the ground. More info.

And finally, to Argentina, where there could just be real whales.

According to whale expert wildslide these are southern right whales who breed in this area during the months of May and October. Success!

Previously on Google Sightseeing: Whales! and Beached Whale

Thanks: The many people who thought they saw a whale, including: Jonathan_Tronson, FrequentFlyer, danescombe, bagabnoosh, kjfitz, Ralph Mettier, Nick, Jim Morton, Andrew, Rking, Yoshino, Barb, Caraurta, danescombe, Todd Pearson, Andrea from Italy, Nichole, James, A30 & John Hartnup

Locations: Argentina, California, Japan, Oklahoma, Vermont, Wales / Categories: Animals, Watercraft

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