(For the View From Your Window contest, the results below exceed the content limit for Substack’s email service, so to ensure that you see the full results, click the headline above.)
From the winner of last week’s contest — the newly anointed super-sleuth in Hinckley, OH:
WOO HOO! That’s some great news. I would love the book, please.
Here’s a followup from our sleuth “way out west” who submitted last week’s view:
Lots of fun to see last week’s results. I forwarded the email to my brother’s girlfriend (who lives in the pictured house), as well as to him. They hadn’t seen the contest before, and both were amazed by the detailed responses from the various sleuths.
Here’s one Truckee detail I was surprised wasn’t mentioned: Paul McCartney played in town two different times, in 2003 and 2004, while on vacation at Lake Tahoe. Both impromptu appearances were at Moody’s, a local jazz bar and bistro. The diners and patrons who were there got the surprise of their life, in my opinion. More details here.
One last note: Chini sent a photo of the Truckee train station that the Tahoe-Donner Historical Society claims is from 1940. But there is a problem with this date: the automobiles in it are *much* later models. An example is the Chevy truck parked in the foreground:
The super-sleuth in Yakima sends a “postscript to my Truckee entry”:
I left a few days early from Yakima for Las Vegas so I could visit Death Valley on the way, a place I’ve always wanted to see. After contest #277 in Lone Pine (near Death Valley), I couldn’t do that without also checking out that town and neighboring Bishop. Then as long as I was going by Reno, it’s not really very far out of the way by looping through Loyalton/Sierraville/Tahoe/Carson City to pass through Truckee.
I expected a small quiet mountain town, laid out logically along an interstate, a railroad, and a river, easy to navigate by dead reckoning without needing frills like a GPS.
Foolish notion! Coming in from the north on Hwy 89 after dark unable to see the lay of the land, I found a ton of satellite subdivisions and a topological rather than rectilinear web of roundabouts and connecting roads. No signs pointed to central Truckee. I finally made my way to the main business district only to discover all the skiers from the surrounding area converge for dinner and beer in town at the same time, filling every available parking space and narrowing the streets. I longed for the relative simplicity of the SeaTac airport parking garage.
Luckily by daylight the next morning, the geography made a lot more sense — though High Street, which had seemed so pastoral in Streetview, was a zoo. Before I left, I was able to snap a new photo of the contest window without disturbing any inhabitants:
And heading out on Old Brockway Rd, I got a clearer view of the mountains:
From the super-sleuth in Brookline:
Argh, I’m kicking myself over Truckee last week. I had followed the California Zephyr train tracks through there on Google Maps, but I was too zoomed out for anything to jump out at me.
Another self-kicking comes from this previous winner:
I am kicking myself for not entering last week. It looked like Truckee right off the bat to me (a Bay Area resident with trips through Truckee with some regularity in years past), but I had no time to confirm or look. So to avoid looking like an idiot, I didn’t enter. Now I look like an idiot.
One more Truckee followup comes from the self-described wine geek in San Fran:
I’m back in the city after two weeks in Japan. We had a great trip, and, of course, like all vacations it seems, we brought back bad-ass colds. I enjoyed reading the globetrotter’s report from last week because it was very similar to the one I wrote that got etherized — although the globetrotter’s was longer, more descriptive, and more thoughtful. I would only add that there is an amazing bike ride called in Tahoe called the Flume Trail on the Nevada side of the lake that has out-of-this-world views:
Here’s a nice note from our super-sleuth in Sagaponack:
I came late to the VFYW game, only really participating this past year, but it has become one of my favorite activities. I love exploring exotic places like Rwanda that I would struggle to find on a map, then seeing the interesting anecdotes, stories, and references in your weekly recap. It’s a very nice community and happy to be here.
To join him and the others, subscribe! Here’s a colorful note from the super-sleuth in Bethlum (aka Bethlehem — about an hour from Philly):
This popped up in my Facebook feed today, so I had to tout it:
The mural is “Folding The Prism” by Jessie Unterhalter, Katey Truhn, and Ryan Strand Greenberg, located at 12th and Spring Garden Streets.
If it weren’t for my husband’s nephew — who does wonderful work for the Philly Streets Dept and promotes all sorts of great street art and city exploration — I wouldn’t be doing this public art “beat” for the VFYW. Shout out to EricInPhilly for all the inspiration. Those of you who might be in Philly should check out EricThePuzzler.com for a great way to experience parts of the city you might not normally see:
My unique puzzle experiences help curious people explore the world using teamwork and observation. They can be ticketed, bookable, or free. They can happen in public, in a business, or online. They almost always have prizes. Join The Puzzle Well to get the latest!
On to this week’s view, the super-sleuth in Albany runs through many clues:
We see lush greenery, palm trees, dense vegetation: tropical/equatorial location. That roiling overcast sky: looks like a place with rainy/monsoon season. A hilly terrain. The architecture: not Asian exactly, colonial/European influenced (tile roofs, window shutters). A mix of wealth levels. Water tanks: inconsistent municipal water supply. Buildings hugging the hillside: a city with limited flat land. Roads with sharp turns, like South Asia/Southeast Asia. Retaining walls: erosion control.
A previous winner writes:
My first thought was Sarajevo. But a quick Google search told me there are no palm trees in Sarajevo. So then I thought about the fact that it’s a hillside village. Another Google search told me that hillside villages are common in India and perhaps Thailand. I liked the idea of searching Thailand instead of India, and got nowhere.
From the super-sleuth in Riverwoods:
Man this one was tough for me. This is a WAG but hoping I’m close: Baguio, Philippines? Unless it’s thousands of miles away in South America :)
Philippines is closer. Here’s Berkeley with the right continent and region:
It feels like it’s been quite a while since we were last in a land of PVC rooftop water tanks, and rooftop solar water heaters, and palm trees that grow naturally by a roadside instead of needing half of a town’s landscaping budget to acquire and plant them, as it is in my neighborhood. Not to mention this is a place where folks drive late model Suzuki Altos (the license plate on that Suzuki is about as close to being square as a rectangle can get without actually being square). That all spelled tropical Asia.
A sleuth in Charlotte spots another clue — “it looks like playground equipment”:
The super-sleuth in Asheville notes:
We are looking out at a private girls’ school whose motto is “The Utmost for the Highest.” Most of the students begin at the pre-school level and continue through to secondary school graduation.
Here’s the highest sleuth, Chini:
From a sleuth in Hertfordshire:
I enjoyed reading about the super-sleuth in Warrensburg’s journey from being a self-described “terrible” sleuth to “one of the most talented sleuths.” I tend to only have a vague clue on about 1 in 20, and rapidly move on to other things rather than emailing in. But then I always enjoy following the logic of the people who didn’t get to the right place. So I figured I’d commit to entering more even when I know I’m nowhere close. So here’s my first effort in that regard.
First impressions were tropical, and with the prominent black water canisters on the roofs, it felt like it should be somewhere in India:
But the car in front of the canisters threw me off for a bit. The distinctive, off-centre, square front plate felt like it should be traceable, and I quickly decided it was a Suzuki Kei, which seems to have stopped being produced in 2009 but had the distinctive off-centre square front plate. A Kei car suggested in must be Japan, and there are certainly parts of Japan that could match the tropical feel, but it doesn’t feel Japanese.
He eventually got to the right country and city, as did the super-sleuth in San Fran:
Interesting adventure this week! You provided one small clue of a right-hand drive vehicle with a white license plate. Mountainous, tropical, and Asian with right-hand drive vehicles … not tidy enough to be Japan, doesn’t feel like Thailand, and Malaysia doesn’t seem to use white license plates commonly, but it could still be Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, or Sri Lanka. That is a lot of territory to cover. It looks too hilly to be Bangladesh, so it’s down to a city in the mountains of Indonesia, India, or Sri Lanka.
The following sleuth names the right country:
Sometimes one little Easter egg opens up the whole location.
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