Google Maps Scavenger Hunt

Alright, your clue is Famous Movie location (the movie's famous, not necessarily the location).

There should be enough here to make this a gimme, but we'll see ---

[attachmentid=10064]

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Toups @ Jul 19 2007, 06:53 PM) [snapback]481898[/snapback]</div>

Catching up after a few days (parents visited over the weekend, worked on a pergola for the backyard grapes). The grapes are actually related to that site - my wife is Bulgarian, and every house has some grapes growing over a patio and maybe a fruit tree and a garden of some kind (rarely a lawn). So now we have some grapes on our suburban plot. When we got married, we toured Bulgaria, and went to this city, Nessebar. The old part is on this peninsular with a very narrow neck, and there are ancient Roman ruins there made of red and yellow bricks, twisty narrow streets still busy with people, widows in black sweeping the side roads with their short-handled stick brooms. The whole place just feels ancient, and you look over the outside wall down at the waves hitting the shore below you, very neat. And for the clues, in Bulgaria they shake their head for yes, nod for no. Can be confusing for tourists relying on sign language to get around! :lol:

Famous movie location has me stumped though. Most of the mountain ones I'm coming up with have people traveling along, and don't really identify any one spot. Only Brokeback Mountain came to mind, but it doesn't look like the Bighorns (where it was supposed to take place) or the parts in Alberta where it was filmed, as far as I could tell.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nerfer @ Jul 23 2007, 08:22 PM) [snapback]483939[/snapback]</div>

Well, time to pile up more clues:

Of films with 6 or more Oscar nominations, only 3 films in Oscar history ever won EVERY award they were nominated for. And a different set of 3 films have the honor of sharing top spot in sheer number of Oscars won. You should at this point be able to find the film in question.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jul 24 2007, 12:27 AM) [snapback]484000[/snapback]</div>

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&...p;z=13&om=1
Paradise, Glenorchy, Otago, New Zealand
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

This is movie related also but not exactly a location[attachmentid=10069]

 

Hurst Castle, California.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&...p;z=18&om=1

Been there, done that. And dang! I also recognized the Saudi airports of Jidda and Riyadh immediately. I spent many days at both during Desert Shield/Storm.


New image:
No hints yet.
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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sufferin' Prius Envy @ Jul 24 2007, 01:27 AM) [snapback]484040[/snapback]</div>

Only one phenomenon could make the earth's surface look like it had acne: Blowing up nuclear bombs underground in the Nevada Test Site
The things mankind does because he can't figure out how to get along with himself. It makes one despair that a species that desperately stupid has any future.

Too depressing.

Lemme find a more cheerful landmark ---

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jul 24 2007, 01:40 PM) [snapback]484238[/snapback]</div>

Good find. I was thinking a super-hi-res picture of a prairie dog town.

 

As far as I can determine, Jacques Cousteau never went here. No point in doing so, apparently.

[attachmentid=10081]

 

If y'all think the 2D image of the Nevada Test Site is depressing or a cool looking "good find" - you should see it in Google Earth with the terrain feature on and the image tilted.

No wonder I felt a couple of those tests. :blink:

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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jul 24 2007, 12:24 PM) [snapback]484260[/snapback]</div>

That would be the Mariana trench.
[attachmentid=10083]

(and, once again, been there too . . . on a test flight out of Guam. We also did a low level fly-by of Saipan and Tinian.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Trench

New image.
No hints yet.
[attachmentid=10085]

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sufferin' Prius Envy @ Jul 24 2007, 12:56 PM) [snapback]484279[/snapback]</div>

I have to disqualify myself because I know exactly where that is.

But what, precisely, your focus is I can't say because I've always regarded that piece of landscape as nondescript in every particular. I'll be intrigued to discover the characteristic that makes it worthy of landmark status.

MB

 

It's the Clifton Court Forebay from the California State Water Project, between Brentwood and Tracy. Significance I'm not sure about.

Now here's a pair of airstrips that even airportkid hasn't landed on. If you could fly over them at about 8000 feet, they'd look like this:

[attachmentid=10088]

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mad Hatter @ Jul 24 2007, 02:21 PM) [snapback]484327[/snapback]</div>

If I could fly over them at about 8000 feet, I'd be wondering what their significance is . . . especially since they are both shut down . . . as indicated by the big white "X"s on the runways.
Do they affect the quantity, quality, diversity, availability and price of food worldwide?
Significance is apparently in the eye of the beholder.
I see two apparently insignificant and abandoned runways.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sufferin' Prius Envy @ Jul 24 2007, 03:19 PM) [snapback]484360[/snapback]</div>

I was not bashing the significance of your post - just trying to respond to airportkid as well. I certainly wasn't going to get into the benfits or detriments of the State Water Project - that's too hot a political potato for me today.

As for the airstrips - they aren't abandoned, you just can't land there.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sufferin' Prius Envy @ Jul 24 2007, 03:19 PM) [snapback]484360[/snapback]</div>

I didn't want to comment on the fact that the landscape was obviously part of the California Aqueduct - that would have given away too much information - but since the Aqueduct & its pumping stations run the length of the Central Valley, I couldn't see what made the Clifton Forebay any more worthy of note than any other segment or pump station of the Aqueduct, hence my comment. The Aqueduct itself is definitely significant - no question.

MB

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mad Hatter @ Jul 24 2007, 03:41 PM) [snapback]484376[/snapback]</div>

I can't find any guidance either in the FARs or the AIM as to how absolute an "X" is in denoting a closed runway. These "Xs" are white - the AIM specifies that closure X's be yellow, so perhaps the white "X" allows the operators to treat the runways as private - "X"tra private - more so than the usual "R" marking would indicate (runways with "R" markings can't be legally landed on without the owner's prior permission (or emergency - but emergencies make it legal to land ANYWHERE at all)). Those runways look much too well maintained to be "closed" let alone abandoned - I think the "X"s are just a STRONG message to keep off unless you've got an invitation. They look like how I'd imagine a runway at Camp David would be marked - with "X"s - not closed, just closed to all but the explicitly invited.

So who needs two runways like that - not just two runways, but two full fledged airports with no connecting taxiways (that's weird).

I've probably landed there only once or twice, so have trouble recalling where it is ---

MB

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jul 24 2007, 04:19 PM) [snapback]484394[/snapback]</div>

Pretty good analysis. I can assure you that you haven't landed on these airstrips. I was surprised to learn that the airspace over them wasn't restricted. Time for some closer photos. This is what they would look like from approximately 4500 feet:

[attachmentid=10113]

[attachmentid=10115]

 

The elevations are important clues.
Use Google Earth to look at your local municipal airport from the same relative height, then compare to these.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mad Hatter @ Jul 25 2007, 03:44 PM) [snapback]485040[/snapback]</div>

The surrounding terrain makes it clear these strips are up high; I'd guess about 2500 ft MSL. The runways are also not much longer than 2000 ft, so they're not built for anything other than Cessna 185 type aircraft: no jets, or even twins; with density altitudes ranging toward 5000 ft on hot days (and the terrain looks like hot days are the rule) the runways aren't long enough for anything but a high performance semi-STOL single.

But that fact alone isn't much help; there are billions of airports with high field elevations.

The Xs show up yellow in your closeups, so they're regulation Xs, meaning the runways are legally closed to all traffic - but I don't know what kind of exceptions the gov't allows for gov't or military ops off X'd runways (although I suspect the gov't & military pretty much do whatever they please).

Your surprise that the airspace isn't restricted hints at a gov't site of some kind (unless you think a celebrity would be able to get airspace protected above their estates - not a chance (at least not yet)).

But the fact that it's two complete airports adjacent without a connecting taxiway (the joining road doesn't look like it has proper clearances its full length to serve as a joining taxiway) is very strange.

Does an international border interpose between them?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jul 25 2007, 05:17 PM) [snapback]485111[/snapback]</div>

Nope.

Many of your observations are on the right track, but not quite hitting the mark.