my tears are salt water and the moon's full and high
Tom Waits - Shiver Me Timbers
I've always liked maps. As a kid I used to look at them all the time. Whenever I go somewhere new I try to look at a map of the area. I don't feel comfortable unless I have a mental map of the area and have a good idea of East, West, North and South.
As an adult, I've spent a lot of time playing with Yahoo Maps, MapQuest and Google Maps, and for the last few years I've had a lot of fun with Google Earth. If you don't have it you're really missing something; it's pretty incredible. One of the nice features is that you can see the latitude and longitude of any spot on earth. For example, my apartment is at 33°29'52" N 111°55'15" W.
Here are a few examples of places along my approximate latitude:
- Laguna Beach, California (south of LA)
- Atlanta, Georgia (southern suburbs)
- Bermuda (about 60 miles / 100 km further south)
- Madeira (about 50 miles / 80 km further south)
- Casablanca, Morocco (southern suburbs)
- Lebanon
- Baghdad, Iraq (northern suburbs)
- Kashmir (India controlled portion)
- Tibet
- Japan (between Hiroshima and Nagasaki)
Going along my longitude is a lot less interesting:
- Edmonton, Canada (about 100 miles / 160 km further west)
- Salt Lake City, Utah
- The Grand Canyon, Arizona
- Cabo San Lucas, Mexico (about 100 miles / 160 km further east)
- Water, water and more water until Antarctica
Finally, the furthest I've ever traveled in any direction:
- North: Reykjavik, Iceland. 63° N. Similar to Fairbanks, Alaska
- West: Honolulu, Hawaii. 157° W. Similar to western-most Alaska
- South: Negril, Jamaica, and Pune, India. Both 18° N
- East: Agra (Taj Mahal), India. 78° E
So, while I've traveled 157°+78°=235° in the East-West direction, well over half of the 360° to get all the way around, I've only covered 63°-18°= 45° in the North-South direction. Looks like it's time to check out the Southern Hemisphere!
No comments:
Post a Comment