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The terrain looks familiar, but from that viewpoint nothing slots into place. I sure wish you could see the peaks/ skyline in that picture. One road I started out on, but couldn't travel over due to weather was Independence Pass, but that doesn't fit with other clues. Is that warmer or colder than my previous guess ? [Well you gotta try !]
Dave.
Perhaps this is the Generals Highway?
The picture looks like it might work, although it's been a decade since I've driven it. It does seems to match all the clues:
It has 2 names: Generals Highway/CA-198.
Near a National Park: Sequoia
RV's are not recommended, at least not if approaching via Three Rivers.
South of the 40th.
I'm guessing Dave has been here? But not sure on that one.
The other spot I was thinking this might be would be Nacimiento-Fergusson Road, the only road between CA-1 and US-101 near Big Sur. It doesn't seem to fit all the clues, however.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Sedenquist
Michael,Quote:
Originally Posted by Midwest Michael
Absolutely correct. Here is a photo taken in 1933 and a bit more of a description.
Generals Highway is named after two of the Giant Sequoia trees: General Grant and General Sherman. The switchback portion shown above has a speed limit of 10 mph.
Good work.
Mark
Yep I've driven it and I had considered it for a guess for this quiz, but no matter how much I looked at that photo, it just didn't look like the right answer.
Dave.
http://www.roadtripamerica.com/photo..._Austin_TX.JPG
(Photo by Peter Thody)
From switchbacks to ovals... do you recognize this view?
1. Where is this place?
2. When was this built?
Yep, I've read your advice about this road -- so I knew that you had been there. Pretty funny....Quote:
Originally Posted by Southwest Dave
Mark
The oval looks like it might be the Old Courthouse in St. Louis.
As the crow flies the oval in question is nearly 800 miles away, but you are on the right track.
Ahh... I should have noticed the 5 pointed star in the floor - along with the 5 seals.
It must be the Texas State Capitol Rotunda, in Austin... 800 miles south of St. Louis.
and to finish answering the question... the building was completed in 1888, although construction started in 1885.
Harking back to the state boundaries and triple points question. Here's one that deals with a unique state boundary. Usually, when a river is used to define the boundary between two states, the boundary is defined as either the mid point between the two banks, or the "thalweg" - the deepest part of the channel. There is one place in the U.S. where this is not the case. Not only that but the exception exists for only part of the river boundary between the two states. So, the obvious questions:
What is the river?
What are the two states?
Why does the exception exist for only part of the river boundary?
I'll even offer a few 'hints'.
The boundary in question has been brought before the US Supreme court on three separate occasions. The ruling has been the same each time. The last time, the Court enjoined the two states involved from ever bringing this question to it again.
Also, one of the states involved has at least a couple of other unique features about its boundaries, but telling you what those are would give it away.
AZBuck
I think you're talking about the NY-NJ border along the Hudson River, and I think specifically, it is the area around the Statue of Liberty.
The exact details I'm a little fuzzy on, but I seem to remember one of the court cases resulting in New Jersey having some of the land right near the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island, because it had originally been dredged from the Jersey side of the river?
The NJ-NY state line is defined as the middle of the Hudson River (or the Arthur Kill in the case of Staten Island). The court case you mention had to do with how that channel had been changed due to dredging. As is the case in such instances, the original channel forms the boundary, not later adjustments to that channel. Similar changes in channel not resulting in changes in the boundary can be seen all up and down the Mississippi as meanders in the river get cut off as the channel moves back and forth, but the old channel still defines the state boundary. A great example of this is Kaskaskia IL. Kaskaskia was the original capital of Illinois, but the river moved and it is now completely on the 'Missouri' side of the river although the state line still wraps around it, following the old original channel.
No, the exception I'm looking for goes on for tens of miles and accounts for a number of what at first look like errors on accurately drawn maps.
AZBuck
Excellent work -- nice to see this solved and a new puzzle in play when I returned to the office!Quote:
Originally Posted by Midwest Michael
Mark
Buck,
Given your clues -- taking a WAG it could have something to do with the upper peninsula of Michigan -- which should have been part of Wisconsin... But now I have to see if this response actually fits the parameters. I like this puzzle.... Requires some serious brain noogling.
Mark
WAG #2
Hmmm, this might actually have to do with the Alabama & Florida border.... Still working on making the facts fit the puzzle....
Mark
The Perdido river forms the boundary between Florida and Alabama. Note that the state line goes down the middle of the river (more or less) as defined (as are most cases) by the bank-to-bank midpoint or the thalweg (deepest channel). In the unique case I am talking about, neither of those two usual measures define the border between the two states on either side of the river. In fact (Big Clue #1):
One state gets the entire river, bank to bank.
And Big Clue #2:
One of the states involved has been involved in an adjudicated border dispute with each and every one of its neighboring states.
AZBuck
Skimming a lot of riparian law arguments -- hmmm. Ok those ought to be good clues... looking again now.
Not the right answer -- but three states have fought over the Ohio River for more than 200 years.... Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana
Getting closer, I think.
The river in question is the Potomac River. Maryland owns this completely to the Virginia border. I've got to leave -- but if anyone wants to read this -- and explain it -- I think this is the explanation....
Mark
That would be the border between Delaware and New Jersey - the Delaware River. South of roughly Odessa, DE the border is in the middle of the river, north of that it's on the NJ bank.
From Wikipedia:
Quote:
Jurisdiction over rivers that form a border between states is usually determined by dividing the river down the middle between the states; this is not the case with the Delaware River. Delaware-New Jersey's curious border is the result of a grant by King Charles II in 1681, when the Delaware Colony was leased by William Penn from King Charles to become the three lower counties of Pennsylvania. The grant extended Delaware's northern border by The Twelve-Mile Circle in New Castle, Delaware, extending across the Delaware River. If the circle were to be extended fully, it would have included a portion of New Jersey, but this was unacceptable because that land had already been granted. As a result, the 12-Mile-Circle terminated at the mean low water mark on New Jersey's shore. The post-1681 border gave present-day Delaware full ownership of the Delaware River along a stretch of the New Jersey border.
The case adjudicated by the Supreme Court is the third incarnation of this litigation. The dispute over the border reaches back to the nation's creation. A settlement was reached between the States at the beginning of the 20th century because the costs of litigation had grown too high.
The absolutely unique feature of Delaware's border is the 12 mile circle (the Circle), centered on New Castle, that is most obvious where it forms the northern boundary of the state with Pennsylvania. It also defines the limits of where Delaware gets the entire Delaware River, from 12 miles north of New Castle (the PA state line) to 12 miles south where the river boundary reverts to the middle of the river. Note two striking aspects of the DE-NJ state line resulting from this. North of Fort Mott State Park in New Jersey it looks like Delaware got not only all the river, but some of New Jersey as well. This is because the land on the west side of the line but on the east shore of the river is landfill and as with other cases where the river has moved, the boundary stays fixed. So New Jersey actually 'gave' Delaware a bit more land when it used the river to store landfill. Another oddity is where the state line returns to the center of the river, again following the Circle centered on New Castle. As it happens, there is a small peninsula there that juts out into the river and also hooks north so that its tip is again inside the Circle. This results in another small piece of 'New Jersey' actually belonging to Delaware.
The Circle also results in another strange bit of boundary in Delaware's northwest corner. The Circle doesn't quite meet up exactly with the north-south portion of Delaware's western boundary. The gore between the Circle and the 'North Line', as it's known, results in a gap called "The Wedge". This small bit of land was the subject of a border dispute between Delaware and Pennsylvania, finally settled (in Delaware's favor) only in 1921. There is one other aspect of Delaware's unique boundaries defined by the Circle. Its western boundary with Maryland is not a straight line, but rather two separate straight lines that meet at a very oblique angle. The bulk of the western boundary is defined as running from the midpoint of the Transpeninsular Line (more on that later) until it is tangent to the Circle and then due north from there. The main portion of the line thus defined is not exactly north-south, but slightly off counter clockwise. By the way, the north-south boundary between Delaware and Maryland was originally surveyed by Mason and Dixon and thus Delaware is the only state defined to be east of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Finally, the Transpeninsular Line. This was a line defined to run from the mouth of Delaware Bay westward to the shore of Chesapeake Bay. It, too, was disputed. The two litigants were the Calverts (Maryland) and the Penns (who held the grant to Delaware as well as the one to Pennsylvania.) The Calverts submitted a map to support their claims. Unfortunately for them, their map was in error and showed Cape Henlopen (near the present town of Lewes) to be some 25 miles too far south (at the present town of Fenwick Island). The King accepted the Calverts' map and thus Delaware is about 50% bigger than it should have been.
AZBuck
I had to go and look it up, but I was actually mentioning a different kind of border oddity. It is specific to Ellis Island, and has nothing to do with the channel changing. If you look closely, You'll find that that part of Ellis Island is in New York, but it is completely surrounded by New Jersey.Quote:
Originally Posted by AZBuck
Ellis Island itself is entirely on the New Jersey side of the border, but as part of a deal between the states in the 1830s, New Jersey gave Ellis Island to New York. (The same deal also gave NY Liberty Island and Staten Island) However, as Ellis Island became a major immigration center, the island was greatly expanded in size using land reclamation.
In 1998, the US Supreme Court ruled that deal between NY and NJ only applies to Ellis Island as it was at the time of the agreement, therefore all the new land is part of New Jersey. End result, 90 percent of Ellis Island is in New Jersey, but a small piece in the middle is located in New York.
BTW, If you're interested in these odd situations about state lines, I highly recommend reading the book "How the States Got Their Shapes." The History Channel did it's own spin on it, but the shows were very light on the facts. The book actually goes through state by state and explains the reason for the boundary - including the fun facts about Delaware's border.