GOAT CANYON TRESTLE

Goat Canyon Trestle is a wooden trestle in San Diego County, California. At a length of 597–750 feet, it is the world's largest all-wood trestle. Goat Canyon Trestle was built in 1933 as part of the San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway, after one of the many tunnels through the Carrizo Gorge collapsed. The railway had been called the "impossible railroad" upon its 1919 completion. It ran through Baja California and eastern San Diego County before ending in Imperial Valley. The trestle was made of wood, rather than metal, due to temperature fluctuations in the Carrizo Gorge. By 2008, most rail traffic stopped using the trestle.   To resist Goat Canyon's high winds, it was built with a 14° curve. Additionally, the bridge was built without nails.

TRESTLE AS SEEN FROM THE SOUTHEAST IN 2016

RUBICON POINT LIGHT

The Rubicon Point Light is a small lighthouse on Lake Tahoe in California. It has not been operational since the 1920s or 1930s. The lighthouse at Rubicon Point has the highest elevation of any American lighthouse. It stands 6,300 feet above sea level at a point where it could be seen from most places around the lake.

RUBICON POINT LIGHT
By Vards Uzvards from San Francisco, CA - Lake Tahoe (p8312148), CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10408202

THE ALL-AMERICAN CANAL

The All-American Canal is an 80-mile long aqueduct, located in southeastern California. It conveys water from the Colorado River into the Imperial Valley and to nine cities. Five smaller canals branching off the All-American Canal move water into the Imperial Valley. These canal systems irrigate up to 630,000 acres of crop land and have made possible a greatly increased crop yield in the area, originally one of the driest on earth. The All-American Canal is the largest irrigation canal in the world, carrying a maximum of 26,155 cubic feet per second. Agricultural runoff from the All-American Canal drains into the Salton Sea.

THE GEYSERS POWER PLANT

The Geysers is the world’s largest geothermal field, containing a complex of 18 geothermal power plants, drawing steam from more than 350 wells, located in Mayacamas Mountains, approximately 72 miles north of San Francisco. Power plants at the Geysers are of the dry steam power plant type, where the steam directly powers the generator. In general, the Geysers has 1517 MW of installed capacity with n average production facto of 63% (955 MW).

PUENTE HILLS LANDFILL

Puente Hills Landfill is the largest landfill in the United Sates, rising 500 feet high and covering 700 acres. As of October 31, 2013, its operating permit has been terminated and it no longer accepts new refuse. The landfill is located in the Puente Hills, in southeastern Los Angeles County near Whittier, California. When it was operating, Puente Hills Landfill took in 13 tons of trash a day. 30,000 cubic feet per minute of landfill gas created by the landfill is funneled to the Puente Hills Gas-to-Energy Facility, which generates more than 40 megawatts of electricity.

Aerial View of Puente Hills Landfill

Britta Gustafson [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]

CIVIC MUSICAL ROAD - LANCASTER, CALIFORNIA

Originally created for a Honda commercial in September 2008, the Civic Musical Road consists of strategically placed grooves that, when driven over produce the musical notes to the finale of the William Tell Overture. Located in Lancaster, California, the original road was constructed on Avenue K, but city officials paved over it 18 days later due to noise complaints from the nearby neighbors. The road was rebuilt on Avenue G in October 2008 and remains there to this day. The new location is two miles away from any residential areas, therefore presenting less problems for the locals. Visitors who wish to hear the musical piece must stay in the far-left land of the three-lane road. It is said that driving at 55 miles per hour provides the optimal sound quality. NOTE: Your humble blogger is a big fan of the Grand Tour on Amazon Prime (video below).

WIDEST MEDIANS ON THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM

WIDEST MEDIANS ON THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM
Interstate	Location	Width of Median
I-24	Southeast of Monteagle, Tennessee (Mile Marker 135)	1.86 Miles
I-84	Deadman Pass, Oregon (Mile Marker 226)	1.86 Miles
I-8	In-Ko-Pah Gorge, Imperial County, California (Mile Marker 123)	1.43 Miles

I-24 in Tennessee

I-84 in Oregon

I-8 in California

"THE STACK"

The Four Level Interchange (also known as “The Stack”, but officially named the Bill Keene Memorial Interchange) was the first stack interchange in the world. Completed in 1949 and fully opened in 1953 at the northern edge of Downtown Los Angeles, it connects U.S. route 101 (Hollywood Freeway and Santa Ana Freeway) to State Route 101 (Harbor Freeway and Arroyo Seco Parkway). The interchange is officially named in memory of Los Angeles traffic and weather reporter Bill Keene.
LEVEL 1	Curved ramps for those changing from the 110 to the 101
LEVEL 2	Main trunk of the 110, named the Arroyo Seco Parkway north of the interchange and the Harbor Freeway south of it
LEVEL 3	Arcing flyover ramps carrying traffic from the 101 to the 110
LEVEL 4	Main trunk of the 101, named the Hollywood Freeway to the west and the Santa Ana Freeway to the east

THE FOUR LEVEL INTERCHANGE AS SEEN FROM ABOVE IN 1959

WORLD'S LARGEST SUNDIALS

Note: The determination of the “largest” sundial in the world is difficult because it depends on whether it is measured by height, width, or the gnomon (the vertical structure that creates the shadow indicating the time of day).

Three of the largest sundials in the world are as follows:

The Samrat Yantra (translation: Supreme Instrument) in Jaipur, India is one of the world’s largest sundials. (It is difficult to pin down the “largest sundial in the world” because “largest” can translate to height or width).

The Samrat Yantra is 90 feet tall, and is so large that its shadow moves at speed of 1 millimeter per second. If you stand and watch it, you’ll see it move about 2 and 1/3 inches every minute. 

Samrat Yantra Sundial in Jaipur, India

The Sundial Bridge (also known as the Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay)  is a cantilever spar cable-styed bridge for bicycles and pedestrians that spans the Sacramento River in Redding, California, and forms a large sundial.

The support tower of the bridge forms a single 217-foot mast that points due north at a cantilevered angle, allowing it to serve as the gnomon of a sundial. The Sundial Bridge gnomon’s shadow is cast upon a large dial to the north of the bridge. The tip of the shadow moves at approximately one foot per minute to that the Earth’s rotation about its axis can be seen with the naked eye.

The Sundial Bridge in Redding, California

Taipei 101 is a supertall skyscraper located in Taipei, Taiwan. It held the record as the world’s tallest building from its opening in 2004 until the 2010 completion of the Burj Khalifa.  

A circular park to the east of Taipei 101 acts as the sundial face, telling the afternoon hours using the shadow cast by the building. 

Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan

HILLSBOROUGH, CALIFORNIA

Hillsborough, California is located in San Mateo County, 17 miles south of San Francisco on the San Francisco Peninsula. Hillsborough is dominated by large homes; the town zoning and subdivision ordinances require a 2,500-square-foot minimum house size and a minimum lot size of 0.5 acres. As a result, there are no apartments, condominiums or townhouses in the city limits. Also, the town has no commercial zoning and thus no businesses with the town limits. The only non-residential properties are the town’s four public and three private schools, town and county government facilities, a golf course, a country club, and small parks.

SELECTED DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF HILLSBOROUGH, CA (SOURCE: ACS)
POPULATION:	10,285
AGE:
Median Age:	47.6
EDUCATION:
Educational Attainment:
Percent high school graduate or higher:	97.1%
HOUSING:
Total Housing Units:	4,156
INCOME:
Median Household Income:	$238,750
ORIGINS AND LANGUAGE:
Foreign Born Population	2,722
POVERTY:
Individuals below poverty level:	3.3%
RACE AND HISPANIC ORIGIN:
White alone, Not Hispanic or Latino:	6,913
Asian alone:	3,348
VETERANS:	374

RIKERS ISLAND V. ALCATRAZ

Rikers Island, NY is 19 times larger than Alcatraz Island, CA

COLMA, CALIFORNIA

Colma is a small incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 1,792 at the 2010 census. The town was founded as a necropolis in 1924.

With most of Colma's land dedicated to cemeteries, the population of the dead—about 1.5 million, as of 2006—outnumbers that of the living by nearly a thousand to one. This has led to Colma's being called "the City of the Silent" and has given rise to a humorous motto, now recorded on the city's website: "It's great to be alive in Colma."

Some notable people interred in Colma include:

Cypress Lawn Memorial Park:

· William Henry Crocker

· William Randolph Hearst

Hills of Eternity and Home of Peace (side by side Jewish cemeteries):

· Wyatt Earp and his wife Josephine Marcus Earp

· Levi Strauss

Holy Cross Cemetery:

· Joe DiMaggio

· Abigail Folger (coffee heiress and Manson murder victim)

CAPITOL RECORDS BUILDING - HOLLYWOOD

The blinking light atop the Capitol Records Building in Hollywood, Los Angeles spells out the word “Hollywood” in Morse code. This was an idea of Capitol’s then-president, Alan Livingston, who wanted to advertise Capitol’s status as the first record label with a base on the west coast.

The construction of the building was completed in April 1956. The beacon atop the building was activated by Leila Morse, the granddaughter of Samuel Morse.

BOTTS DOTS

What are those little bumps in between the lanes on freeways?

Those are known as raised pavement markers, or "Botts’ Dots."

Botts' dots may also be called turtles (Washington and Oregon) or buttons (Texas and other southern states). In many parts of the US and other countries, Botts' dots are used, along with reflective raised pavement markers, to mark lanes on highways and arterial roads. They provide tactile and auditory feedback to drivers when moving across designated travel lanes, and are analogous to rumble strips.

Botts' dots are named after Elbert Dysart Botts, a California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) engineer credited with overseeing the research that led to the development of the markers.

There are an estimated 20 million Botts” Dots in place today on California freeways and highways.

Botts dots are rarely used in regions with substantial snowfall because snow ploys damage or dislodge them.