There's no joy in Mudville!

It's not a flood. They built on an island on purpose.

On porpoise?

Is it some sort of fishing community? Crayfish catchers? Baitworm farm?

Not very scenic, and not very far from more land, so it can't be for beauty or security reasons.

Rice paddies maybe? Or raising a herd of baby Swamp Things?

Is it The Republic of Elbonia?

Edit: From Wikipedia:

That's not quite true. Communism abandoned Elbonia.

I'd say an village in the Amazon area.

Because it was easier than building underwater?

The closest guess so far. It IS in the Americas. Mexico.

Mexcaltitan

I was off by at least a thousand miles

Where is this?
Attachment 34815

The town starts with an "A" ?

It's at 21degrees 54' 21.09"N 105degrees 28' 30.92"W

I'm not going to do the math to convert decimal degrees to minutes/seconds, but that sounds about right.

Did you find it on your own or from the coordinates in the wiki link I posted?

I entered Mexcaltitán de Uribe into Google Earth, but that was way off. Santiago Ixcuintla was much more helpful. I didn't see the coordinates until you pointed out that they were there :blush: It's described as "off the coast", but really it's in the salt marsh somewhat inland.

The geology between the coast and the island city is really interesting. It almost looks glacially carved, but I seriously doubt the glaciers made it that far south.

Yes. I would have barred you from the competition, but I thought that itself would be too big a clue. It's a lovely bridge, I have a couple more that are pretty interesting. I only took drive by shots--actually, I have to credit my girlfriend for this one as I was driving and she's a more talented and experienced photographer than I am. Plus, she was on that side of the car.

That's quite a compliment for your girlfriend, because you are no slouch in the photography department.

Thank you, :). But seriously, she *can* drive, it was her car after all.

(eta, funny little story... actually. Ima axe her first ... yeah. brb)

It's the Astoria-Megler Bridge. It crosses the Columbia River between Astoria, OR and Point Ellice in Washington.

I got there w/a Google Image search, using the search term 'steel bridge Washington state'.

Correct!

This second shot was taken a minute after the first one. It is a BIG RIVER.

Attachment 34823

By the way... I'm glad you noted your method for answering this. I'd had the mistaken notion that Google was off limits, especially Google Image search....

I think the picture search version of GIS is off limits. But I think searching for a phrase is fair. Otherwise how are you going to do it?

Reconcile these please?

Actually, I was stuck with your question too, hoping I'd just.. know, I'd just recognize the place. If not GIS, then what? "Fair" is what we decide is fair, of course; it's just a game. I knew Lamplighter would have an advantage, and I was right. I dunno. Text searching ok, image searching not ok? Does that sound right?

Google has a new image search where you can throw a picture's URL into the GIS, and it actually searches for similar images. I think that's cheating. But if you are smart enough to know how to search for images while using descriptive words, then I think that's fair. My picture a few posts back could be searched for with "jungle island city" or something like that.

Otherwise is really is impossible. Either you know it, or you don't.

Well, it can't be much fun if you have to have been to the place to identify it. Kinda leaves out, pretty much everyone who hasn't been there. In my mind, cheating would be using a TinEye-type search, this includes the new-ish Google image search thing where you drag the actual picture to the search bar, which then performs a TinEye-type search.

It'd get awfully slow, and awfully boring, awfully fast if we were to go with first-person knowledge only. Think about it: Say Grynch posts a Where Is It? pic, from Switzerland. Unless it's a VERY, VERY famous subject, virtually no one outside of a very few world travelers will get it.

What he said.

Ok, thanks guys!

This how I do it:

1. Study the picture in question for anything specific to the subject/area. A sign, a peculiarity of any kind. Something that you wouldn't find just any/everywhere.

2. Go to Google Images.

3. Type words into the search box. As I said earlier, for V's pic I typed "steel bridge Washington state", (I first typed "steel girder bridge Washington", but that didn't do the trick for me) without the quotation marks, and just drilled down the results til I found one that was similar. I then clicked the link for that image, and, after finding some sort of identifying info, double-checked it against Wikipedia.

4. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

It looks like someone bent your bridge.

I'm not sorry bout ur bridge.

By coincidence, I had just driven to Astoria about 3 weeks ago, for the first time in ~30 years.
But that's the reason I didn't give a name in my post.

If you'd like another bridge over the Columbia, search Google Images for "St Johns bridge Portland"
Under the bridge is "Cathedral Park"... We (in PDX) think it's a magical place.

Where is this?

Somewhere wet and European.

OK 30 minutes is enough for me today. I got nothing.

There's not enough unique reference there for my fragile little mind today.

It's not Europe. Those parking lots and vehicles are too big for it to be Europe. Plus there is too much space between buildings. The roofs of the houses are peaked. They look northern and fairly old. It's gotta be northern USA. Probably north east or rust belt. Near a river. Twin traffic circles are fairly rare here, so it shouldn't be too hard to find. Train track too. Train tracks along rivers are common.

I have never seen a traffic circle in person, and I've been to thirty or so states.

But not lately, though.

Thinking about it, I've never seen video or photos of a roundabout in the U.S., either.

I feel cheated.

Oh, you haven't lived! Traffic circles are just peachy

Are you sure that those are traffic circles and not roundabouts? I don't see any stop signs.

and just swell for pedestrians - NOT

I thought they were the same thing. we have these weird traffic circle intersections here in the city. but they have traffic signals, so they are the worst of both worlds.

Traffic circles always say "joisey" to me ... is that somewhere alog the Blackhorse Pike? Or the Whitehorse? Or Somedamnhorse?

I don't think the roads involved have ever been referred to as a horse pike. Getting warm, though.

[Beavis] Black Whore Spike [/Butthead]

What is the difference between a roundabout and a traffic circle?

Country of origin.

Over here, a roundabout is a movable platform you put a train car on to spin it so it's pointing the correct direction.

Is that the infamous Marlton Circle, then?

Wikipedia has a fascinating discussion of the many types of road junctions, complete with illustrations!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout

Look at this one from the Czech Republic:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._air_K2_-1.jpg

OK what else: the four-lane road ends in the circle, it's two lanes after that.

I don't remember ever seeing that style of hashed lines marking some of the road edges.

The land has to be on the right side, the tracks on the right side and the rail line hugs the edge. Therefore it's not the Delaware, Spexx' home ground.

The land on the right side has to be rather straight, which kind of confirms it's a river and not sea or bay.

Everything is going from SSW to NNE, possibly the biggest clue.

The major buildings look to cover industrial (on the river), office space (middle) and retail (lower right), so the area has to be busy enough to support all three.

It's Brooklawn NJ

Edit: And I spent way too much time on this.

Daaaamn

So the rail didn't hug the river but it wasn't river we were looking at...!

Nice work sir, I put in a good 45 minutes

I spent about 20 minutes yesterday and another 45 or so this morning.

I turned on railroads in Google earth, and turned off roads, and didn't find it until I noticed the color of the grass in the circles and started looking for that color.

Perhaps?

grumble mumble... I spent a lot of time on this one too. I started looking at the Delaware river much further south and went right past it.
Good job glatt and good one Spexx.

Outstanding job as far as I'm concerned, Glatt. Did personal knowledge of some sort figure in here. I know that with V's bridge whereisit, I knew (well, thought I knew) that V lived in WA. So that's where I started looking. How did you know to look in Joisey?

Glatt, u da man! Impressive, sir.

Where is this?

clue: Unique in the world, and I am certain everyone here has heard of it.

Morman Tab Organ

Correct!

Have you been there? How did you know?

I guess it was really more of another "What is this?", and the where would be SLC, UT. ... I'll get better at this, promise.

I must have seen a pic before. It was the first thing that popped into my head. sorta weird really

I visited there in the 60's and V's picture is different than I remember.
This Google Images pic is dated ~ 1999