Roseyland

Today is a big day. Are you excited? You should be. I have created a new game that is sure to sweep the nation. I call it Airborne Google Earth Photo Safari Game or AGEPSG. AGEPSG is kind of like Geocaching, Confluence Hunting, and/or Wheres Georgeing, except better in every possible way. This is how it works.

1. Get in an airplane and get a window seat, push and shove if necessary. The longer the flight the better, but the flight should be mostly over land and during the day.
2. Wait until the flight has progressed long enough that you don’t really know where you are.
3. Look out the window and take a picture of the ground. I recommend using a camera phone, so that you don’t freak out the other passengers too much. Also, turn off the flash, unless of course you enjoy drawing attention to yourself and you want a picture of your reflection.
4. After you land, get on a computer with Google Earth and try to find what you took a picture of.
5. Post something about it on the internet, so that the whole world knows how awesome you are.

I invented this game on a recent flight from San Francisco to St. Louis. I was looking out the window and I saw this lake, and I was like “What in the hell is that lake?”. So I took a picture of it with my iPhone. Below is the first Airborne Google Earth Photo Safari Game picture ever taken. Remember people, this is the picture that started it all.

Honestly, I didn’t think I’d be able to find this lake in Google Earth, but as it turns out, it’s a pretty big Lake. You can see the Google Earth version of it below.

I was able figure out that this is Mono Lake, which is a hypersaline lake near Yosemite National Park. Apparently it is one of the oldest lakes in North America and has something to do with volcanic activity. Follow the link if you want to know more. I took the next picture a little bit after Mono Lake.

This one was harder to find, but I found it. You can see the Google Earth version below.

It took a little bit of digging, but I was able to figure out that this is the Big Sand Springs Valley region in Nevada. Not much to say here except that it is one of about a million dry lake beds in Nevada. I took one last Airborne Google Earth Photo Safari Game picture about an hour after the dry lake picture. Here it is.

This picture was the hardest to find in Google Earth, because it deviated the most from the great circle path between San Francisco and St. Louis. I am a professional AGEPSGer though, and naturally I was able to find it. Here is the Google Earth version.

This is a picture of the Boulder Reservoir and Six Mile Reservoir near Boulder, CO. It’s funny, because I had no idea I was over Boulder, CO. Okay, so maybe it’s not ha ha funny, but it’s funny in that it’s kind of interesting, to me… a little.

Here is a big Google Earth picture with the location of the three AGEPSG pictures marked along with the San Francisco and St. Louis airports. The line is the great circle path from San Francisco to St. Louis. It is interesting that towards the middle of the flight we were significantly north of the great circle path. I figure this has something to do with the jet stream, or flight corridors, or another one of those massive government conspiracies. So there you have it folks. The beginning of the next big thing. Keep in mind, you don’t have to play this game alone. You can also send Airborne Google Earth Photo Safari Game pictures to your family and friends and see if they can find them in Google Earth. The possibilities are endless.