Google Maps Scavenger Hunt

It's the Richat Structure in Mauritania.

And you could tell the scale of the non-correct linked map was way off because of the size of the image tiles in the original image!

I'll let the last new post stand since I don't have any big ideas right now.

 

Ichabod has got it!

Airportkid's lake is killing me, though.

Everybody knows where it is, but few know it's name.

So far, I've tried all of the great lakes, Ozero Baikal, Lake Victoria, the lake in Yellowstone park, Lake Mead, and the lake behind 3 Gorges Dam.

I admit it - I think he's stumped me.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mad Hatter @ Jun 25 2007, 03:22 PM) [snapback]467845[/snapback]</div>

Time for another clue:

"So, is this lake a big tourist attraction?"

"One of the biggest in the world."

"Then you're wrong about only a few people knowing its name."

"No, I'm pretty sure I'm right. In fact, the odds are that several people here on Priuschat have gone to visit this lake and if asked I'm sure they'll confess that even today they haven't a clue as to what its name is."

"You must be talking about some obscure historic name then, not its common name".

"No, I'm talking about its one and only common name. The name printed in any map or atlas."

 

Hmmm - that wasn't the clue you were seeking, eh?

"So, tell us what continent it's on anyway."

"I can't tell you that."

"You're a big help."

"You're welcome."

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Boulder Bum @ Jun 25 2007, 11:07 PM) [snapback]468134[/snapback]</div>

No problemo.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Boulder Bum @ Jun 26 2007, 02:07 AM) [snapback]468134[/snapback]</div>

I don't mean the size of the images that make up the page that google maps displays, I mean the big tiles that are the source-photos. In the original image you can see distinct lines where the colors changes between different aerial images, whereas in the pit mine image, you can tell it's zoomed way in on a section of a much larger image. But points should be awarded for finding the correct location for the caption that was mistakenly assigned to the correct landmark

 

p.s. Lake Gatun, across which one must travel when navigating the Panama Canal. I would argue that not everyone knows where the lake is, or that there's even a lake there.

The "can't tell you which continent" hint was the closest, but the "largest tourist attraction" had me looking for pilgrimage sites between Asia and India, or Asia-Europe.

New image coming shortly.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ichabod @ Jun 26 2007, 03:18 PM) [snapback]468485[/snapback]</div>

Good job. I was thinking of a lake from a movie, like "On Golden Pond", except without the name in the title obviously. Something more like "A river runs through it", but about a lake. And yes, I knew there's at least one lake used by the Panama Canal, but didn't know the name of it. For the continent hint there's also the Marmara Sea, in Turkey between the Asian and European continents, but that's not a fresh water lake.

 

Ok, here's the next location. Maybe pretty easy with this hint: It's the starting line for an important race:

[attachmentid=9247]

 

Well, the space race started at Baikonur Cosmodrome, at Tyruratam Kazakhstan where the old USSR launched the first artificial earth satellite Sputnik in the early 50s, causing me and every other kid in the U.S. to spend the next several years in the public schools innundated in math and science (too bad that educational bolus wore off) as the U.S. desperately raced to catch up (and finally "won" by being the first to put a man on the moon).

But if anyone can find Ichabod's image in Googlemaps ideas about where that cosmodrome is, you're welcome to it, because I sure as hell couldn't pin it down (my link only shows all the candidate flags across a wide geographic area, none of which match that image).

Of course, if Ichabod's race isn't the space race, then that launch gantry is the biggest red herring yet posted in this game - and a rather more complicated challenge than it first appears :blink:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jun 26 2007, 03:46 PM) [snapback]468532[/snapback]</div>

OK, Done.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&...005879&z=18

Next image up for grabs . . . I'm too busy.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ichabod @ Jun 26 2007, 01:18 PM) [snapback]468485[/snapback]</div>

Grrrrrr, I looked at that lake two or three times but couldn't get the image to match up, don't ask me why. Anyway good catch Ichabod!
I have been so busy just lately that I even passed up an airplane ride wtih airportkid, Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! <_< Sorry APK.
Next week doesn't look any better as I have two houses listed, a couple appraisals coming up and relatives coming in from Singapore and Baltimore! Leaving for Bay Area tomorrow to pick everyone up and go Touring. Point Reyes to Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Canyon Lands in Southern Utah, Death Valley, Back door into Yosemite and then home to Fresno/Clovis. Sure wish I had bought the 2006 Hybrid Highlander now.

Wildkow

p.s. Thanks SPE since I'm busy and haven't gotten one in quite awhile I'll take you up on your offer see you all L8R. Sorry APK no runway heading! They are not needed.


[attachmentid=9252]

p.p.s. Try to keep an eye out here on the road as my Cell Phone has unlimited data plan and I'm taking my laptop along to check Google Maps with my Brother-In-Laws GPS. Maybe we will try to find some Live Webcams and let you all take a look at us!! Nothing like watching someone else vacation is there?

 

AirportKid, you had all the details right, and that launch pad is in your posted link, you just have to zoom in a little

I'm not 100% certain, since I got my info from google, but that appears to be the R-7 launch pad. Sputnik1 launch vehicle was an R-7 rocket, so I think that's where it happened. Check out that area in Google Earth, it's fun to explore, and you can even see a derelict Russian space shuttle sitting there. The area in AirportKid's link, according to Google Earth, is almost ALL Cosmodrome territory. There are a large number of launch pads, fuel processing and storage facilities, the landing strip for their space shuttle... I bet the Soviets wouldn't have been too happy if we'd had access to that kind of detailed imagery back then!

 

Well, Kow, here's what I've got - there are two distinctive features that spring out on your image - the checkerboard roof and the blue and white planes.

The largest carrier I could find with that blue and white scheme is KLM
[attachmentid=9260]

There are others:
Braniff (Bankrupt)
British Midlands Air (a small UK carrier)
The TUI Group, including Corsairfly, Jetairfly, White Eagle aviation, and TUI
(TUI has just recently started painting it's planes blue - any older images will show
Yellow body with white wings)

So, I started going through the route lists for KLM, BMI, and TUI... That's a lot of airports! This got me no where - so back to the roof. A little research on airport roofs shows that there is a unique, green roof at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam.
[attachmentid=9261]

Unfortunately, it doesn't match up!!! ARGH!!!!

So, i proceeded to look at damn near every other airport in the netherlands... No love there either. What now? The architect!! A very sucessful man named Benthem Crouwel. Yes! Lots of pages with "Benthem Crouwel" and "airport".... Oh damn. They are ALL amsterdam. <sigh>.

I give up. Need more clues....

 

>I give up. Need more clues....

you have it right , and the correct link
he? rotated the image.
Schipohl

 

while mad hatter tears his hair out for not rotating the image,
here is another airport, for history buffs

 

Your detective work is outstanding, Hatter, and makes me wonder if Kow's entry is a landmark in the virtual world, not the real one. His airport is a virtual clone of the Schiphol terminal, in mirror image, with too many points of similarity for the architect of Schiphol's terminal not to have been involved - yet the architect's website features ONLY Schiphol work in its vast resume of projects - had they been involved in development of a Schiphol clone somewhere I'm sure it would've been included.

So perhaps Kow's airport exists only in Microsoft's Flight Simulator's vast library of scenery, albeit I couldn't find it - but I hadn't looked that hard for it there either.

His joke about runway headings not being needed could be an allusion to the fact that real runways and real headings aren't necessary when flying a computer.

Anyway, there's something indefinably "unreal" about Kow's image - when you look at real airport images they're hard edged with the grit of the real world - Kow's image is a little too "clean".

I could be all wrong in this speculation and Kow's airstrip is real as the Moon, but so far, the Moon's about the only place I haven't looked for it without finding it!

MB


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(pewd @ Jun 27 2007, 06:55 PM) [snapback]469162[/snapback]</div>

That's not a rotated image, it's a mirror image - and there are far too many disimilarities for the airports to be the same - the number of gates, the ramp configuration, the terminal apron, etc. etc.

But the similarities are also too numerous for two separate airports to share them without it being noted in the architect's information, hence my suspicion that Kow's airstrip is a computer simulation.

MB

 

Mad Hatter, you KLM Airliner pic is a good hint!

Pewd, image is rotated but just so I could crop the pic to remove/conceal dead giveaways to its ID and location. Check the compass rose in the upper right, the “N†is missing but still enough info there to tell the orientation.

APK, the pic is real and from google earth and NOT computer generated . . . The moon however, is made of green cheese!

Other clues: Close to the beach, not in the U.S. BTW, “every other airport in the netherlands...†shouldn’t a spill check have been done and a Cap added in this sentence? [attachmentid=9268] Look at the image carefully for more clues related to it's physical properties and unrelated to the ID and location.

Wildkow