Point Roberts, Washington, USA, is a small seaside community with just under 1,500 residents. It boasts a small main street, 2 gas stations, and one supermarket. What makes this village unique is that by virtue of being on a 4.9-square-mile peninsula, its only border is with Canada – and is completely isolated from the rest of the United States.

An unforeseen side-effect of the 1846 Oregon Treaty, life in this U.S. exclave moves at a much slower pace than on the mainland, but at the cost of some major conveniences. Residents of Point Roberts have to drive over an hour and through two international border crossings just to see a dentist, seek medical attention, or even go to school past the 3rd grade!

Located only 30 minutes outside of downtown Vancouver, Point Roberts is also popular with vacationing Canadians for its relatively inexpensive real estate.¹

Despite its isolation from the rest of the country, this bastion of United Statehood actually has its own border crossing (pictured above) and is the self-proclaimed “greatest gated community in the United States”. Though, if you think about it, isn’t it just like a small Alaska?²

There’s more about Point Roberts at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Keith, Didier, Deron Husak, and Peter.

There are a few contenders for the World’s Largest Cowboy Boots. The best claim perhaps belongs to this pair, which stands 12m tall, outside the North Star Mall in San Antonio, Texas. Tall as they are, they’re barely visible from above, but thankfully the Street View car drove right by.

And they make quite the sight when decorated for Christmas!

A solitary boot of almost the same height can be found in Edmonton, Alberta. Also hard to pick out on the satellite image, Live Maps’ birds eye view is somewhat better.

It’s about 30cm shorter than the pair in San Antonio, but is equally impressive when lit up!

Meanwhile, a 6.5m pair of boots - along with a 13m wide steel cowboy hat - can be found in Oxbow Park in Seattle, Washington … and on Street View and Live Maps.

These structures were relocated from their original gas station location, where the boots contained the bathrooms!

Another location with a larger-than-life cowboy hat is the mini-replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Texas, barely visible from the nearest Street View image:

The hat was added in 1998 in an effort to one-up the residents of Paris, Tennessee after several back-and-forth attempts to create the largest replica.

And in Yukon, Oklahoma, a beautifully landscaped boot can be found in Chisholm Trail Park - named for the route of a 19th century cattle drive between Texas and Kansas. The decorative landscaping, including fountains in the two small ponds, is even more visible on Live Maps’ birds eye view.

Thanks to ‘Koty’, Ray, . and Felippo.

It’s been a little while since we looked at mazes here on Google Sightseeing, so here’s a collection of some of the latest finds.

While there are several claims to be the world’s largest maze, the most legitimate seems to be the Peace Maze, in Northern Ireland - which is officially recognised by the Guinness book as the largest permanent hedge maze in the world.

The path of the Peace Maze is 3.15 kilometres (2 miles) long, and contains many features symbolic of The Troubles; most notably a divide which has to be crossed to get to the end.

There are many non-permanent mazes, often created from corn or other plants. This one outside York claimed to be the largest when it opened with a Star Trek theme in 2006, but in the current view it is somewhat smaller.

At Temple Hall Farm Regional Park near Leesville, Virginia, there’s a maze celebrating 100 years of flight.

Across the country near Olympia, Washington, a TV fan has clearly paid homage to his favourite series by creating this CSI themed maze.

Back in England, we have a Monster Maze at Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm in North Somerset. Like many maze owners, the people in charge here make grand claims about their maze’s importance - but in truth this is just one of many attractions that claim to be the world’s longest hedge maze.

Finally here in Conholt Park, Wiltshire, we find what might be the most bizarrely shaped maze ever - a giant foot! (Perhaps this is related to the World’s Largest Fingerprint?)

See our Maze category for loads more interesting mazes!

Thanks to Marc Armstrong, DJ Swammi, Kel, Jim Culp, john and Chris Branagan.

With this week’s launch of Street View for New Zealand we thought it was time for a quick roundup of the best Street View sights we’ve posted on our Twitter page over the past week. We’ve found several things to see in New Zealand so far:

• The world’s largest Kiwi fruit is in New Zealand of course.

• Middle Earth’s Mount Doom (aka New Zealand’s Mount Ngauruhoe)

• Could this be the world’s largest dog and sheep?

• Looking into the crater of Mt Eden, Auckland.
• From our previous post on Zorbing in NZ, here’s some zorbuses on top of the hill:

Whilst elsewhere in the world we’ve seen:

• The Castlemaine XXXX Factory from the label is now on street view
• It’s alright mate, nobody’s watching you painting that wall
• Jimi Hendrix rocks Seattle
• After a slow morning taking pictures of Florida, the Google Driver skives off
• A caged Polar Bear on the streets of France
• The World’s largest baseball bat outside the Louisville Slugger Museum
• And finally, have you ever wondered what happens when the Street View car gets rained on? Well now you know!

If you’d like more sights like this, then subscribe to our twitter feed!

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.