Let’s take a walk
Holy cow! Have you checked out Google Maps lately? They’ve got practically everywhere on street view now.
I was checking out the land around Badger House on the satellite view, accidentally hit some button or other, and — yep, there we were. Up close and street level. Way out here in East Sheeptesticle, England. (Fortunately, we’re set back from the road, so you can barely make out the house).
After that, Uncle B and I took turns showing each other all the places we’d lived and worked and hung out.
I know Google is Teh Evil and they’re doing some very dodgy data mining on these trips — but, goldurnit, street view is just so impossibly cool! It’s one thing to see a map of the first house you remember, it’s quite another to walk down the street where you lived when you were six. From the shores of the English Channel.
Our old neighborhood in Southeast London has changed hugely in the couple of years since we were there. Whereas my hometown, Alexandria, Tennessee, has changed hardly at all since 1970 — except it’s paved now. (Outside town, there’s a giant orange billboard with “home of the finest folks on earth” on it. And “Population 630”).
Check out a few of my favorite places (after you hit the link, give it a second and it’ll switch automagically from map to street view):
Have a gander at Battle Abbey. Take a stroll down Rye High Street or around lovely Winchelsea (two places very much on our short list when we were looking at houses). Scope out the Long Man of Wilmington and Stonehenge — the pictures prove just how close the henge is to the road. And Arundel Castle (I tried and failed to find the spot where we saw all the little shops in blue shadow below, with the castle looming over it, shining and golden. But have a look around the town; perhaps you’ll find it). How about Trafalgar Square? I took one of my favorite shots of Uncle B there years ago. It looks like the fountain is pouring out his left ear.
Too fun! Excuse me; I’m off to Rome. Or maybe Hollywood. Or Wasilla. Or Amsterdam.
Ah, I love the internet. It grants me all the awesome godlike powers I have always known were destined to be mine.
April 29, 2010 — 10:16 pm
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