(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.)
Apologies for the late results this week; my birthday was yesterday and I got pulled away to a party just before finishing the contest. This sleuth probably forgives me:
Just wanted to say happy birthday. And thanks for connecting all of us here in the VFYW community. We love what you’ve created! Have a great birthday weekend.
Wow — truly didn’t expect this! I’d love the VFYW book. Can’t wait to thumb through it. Hope you’re enjoying a nice break.
I rarely even try to solve the contest (though I really enjoy reading the entries every week), but I’ve had a crappy few weeks at work, and scouring for clues in the weekly views has been a nice mental distraction. I’ve been reading Sully consistently for at least 10 years (probably more like 15), and his voice and perspective have helped shape a lot of my own thoughts. Thanks for everything that you and Andrew do to keep the Dish going.
Here’s a followup from the super-sleuth in Albany:
I can’t believe nobody, including me, mentioned the meaning and derivation of the word “Adirondack” for the Lake Placid entry. Before it meant the mountains or the state park or the chairs, it referred to the Algonquian people living in that area. But it’s not an Algonquian word; it’s taken from the Mohawk phrase “atiro·taks” — which literally means “they eat trees.”
What on earth does that mean? It’s a dig at the Algonquians, i.e., “your hunting skills are so bad, you have to eat tree bark.” Sick burn! But seriously, you can eat the inner bark of some trees, and in the winter when food was scarce, that’s what people did. Black and yellow birch, red and black spruce, most pines, and slippery elm — all apparently nutritious, but not very tasty.
The super-sleuth from Santa Monica successfully panders to the beagle blog:
I’m back from the eclipse viewing in Piedras Negras, Mexico (the border town facing Eagle Pass, Texas). It was a little cloudy and my iPhone 13 mini didn’t help, but I saw you already had plenty of other good submissions. As to windows from which to have a view, let’s just say the Best Western Mission Inn Las Cruces didn’t have one. Inspired by contest #407, I stayed at the LINE Austin (with its needless capitalisation) and its beagle-friendly patio. I really should have taken a VFYW from the trailer at the fantastically named “El Cosmico” in Marfa, West Texas, but in the rush to get going to Big Bend, I forgot.
I love Big Bend, including the hot springs just outside the national park that flow into the adjacent Rio Grande. Several years ago I went with a few friends — including the Dish’s favorite pet photographer, Carli Davidson — after an overnight hike in the park:
From the super-champ in Berkeley:
I know it’s been three weeks since the San Francisco view, but I hope you can find room for one last bit of video from there. A Trip Down Market Street (1906) is 11 fascinating minutes of a mile-and-a-half long cable car ride, starting roughly where Jones Street hits Market and ending at the Ferry Building. The condition of the original 1906 footage had become poor enough that it was nearly unwatchable, but it’s been digitally remastered and colorized and given a soundscape, which puts you right there rolling past real San Franciscans as they go about their lives unaware that an enormous earthquake and fire would level the city and upend or end their lives just four days later:
Another writes:
I still set the timer on five minutes to solve these puzzles, and ten minutes to email you. Maybe these constraints should be a separate contest category for those of us with too little time (or for super-sleuths looking for a new challenge after slaying the contest so many times). Honor system, of course. Without the time limits, I’ve learned, I will lose half a Saturday, forget to pick up the kids at basketball practice, and end up in the doghouse yet again.
For this week’s view, the super-sleuth in San Mateo sends “my reimagined view taken through a window somewhat dirtier than the original window”:
From the NY Lax Fan:
Tougher one this week. Ran out of time. Looks Caribbean — palm trees and a bluff. Left-side driving. A red flag with a white dash on it against the red roof. I’m taking a total flier that it’s Antigua.
Here’s a nearby island:
For this view, where are the clues? Here’s a WAG based only on red roofs in a tropical, Western-feeling environment: Saba Island.
Another Caribbean guess comes from the super-sleuth in Chattanooga:
It’s so unsatisfying to offer a guess and not really have a clue as to where to stab. Two-week puzzles with the reminder of proximity counting make me assume we are dealing with a limited Google Map area. Tropical vegetation and a c1900 wood architecture in focus feel Caribbean. Other visible Spanish-tile roofs and formal sidewalks with curb cuts imply something about infrastructure and some general wealth in the area.
The vehicles and the stop sign suggest left-hand traffic. Interesting to learn that USVI actually follows LHT, but seeing trucks and 4WD seems like rougher terrain must need to be accessed. Jamaica and Dominica list some off-road adventuring, but similar red roofs aren’t popping in Jamaica.
In all this island hopping, I’ve had enough time to find matching red roof with bistro umbrellas, but I’ve struck out, so maybe I’m wrong in assuming we are even in the Caribbean. But I gotta guess somewhere, so: Roseau, Dominica.
The super-sleuth in Eagle Rock writes, “This window location is really, really, far from anything. Chini’s view is going to be mostly ocean.” Actually the grand champion zoomed in this week:
From a sleuth in Alexandria:
There are two things I’ve learned from the last several challenges: 1) automobile makes can help narrow things down (the Chile shot); and 2) if you think you know it, guess (I thought this shot was San Fran because of the seriously sloped street, but didn’t guess. Ugh!).
So on this one, obviously tropical and it looks like left-side-of-the-street driving, but that white house looks like something you’d see in New England or the maritime provinces of Canada. So to me it seems like English influence, and the two car makes I was able to identify — the Mitsubishi Outlander and Toyota Yaris — are popular in Australia. And I was actually able to find red metal roofs on a couple buildings in Internet pictures with similar architecture in Australia, so I’m going to go with that.
But I have no clue where. I assume that red-and-white flag will help more adept sleuths narrow it down. I’ll take a stab at Melbourne.
Here’s another stab — at the flag:
This looks vaguely like Latin America to me. If the flag on the building is a national flag, then the Latin American one it most resembles is that of Peru:
We’ve got to keep some dog stuff in the Dish mix, of course, and since my Mexican rescue dog’s DNA report showed some Aztec Xoloitzcuintli, I’ve taken an interest in these strange types of dogs. Like Mexico, Peru has an indigenous hairless dog — the Peruvian Inca Orchid:
From the beginning of the entry from the super-sleuth in Chevy Chase:
My first thought when I saw the picture on my phone was “Bermuda” because of the Bermuda-ish building, palm trees, Union Jack with another red flag flying above it. (“Isn’t Bermuda’s flag red?”) Closer look: NOT the Bermuda flag.
From the super-sleuth in Lafayette, CA:
Channeling last week’s advice from the UWS super-sleuth, I took one look at this picture and my gut said Jamaica: tropical, mountainous, caters to tourists. Boy was that wrong! Thankfully, I didn’t have to trust my gut for this one!
From the beginning of another entry:
At first I was thinking maybe South Africa, for the following reasons:
driving on left
palm trees, somewhere hot
license plates are long and thin
The architecture of the red-roofed building looks like somewhere with English influence (which would also account for driving on the left); in fact, my first thought was a small town in the American South. That building is very colonial looking.
I wasn’t sure about that red-and-white flag … but I wasn’t sure how much weight to give it, either, because I pulled up a list of countries that drive on the left, and none of the flags really looked right. I thought it could be some kind of local flag?
However, it turned out I was wrong. I should have looked harder at the left-driving country flags. Though in my defense, you really can’t see the one in the original picture very clearly … I think the cafe needs to clean the window.
Team Bellevue:
QUICK READS
Man, our windows need washing.
Palms and bananas — feeling tropical
Good chance this is right-hand-drive — white compact car in the foreground and placement of stop sign are the most compelling evidence
Some kind of red flag, though you didn’t cover it up this time, so who knows
Strange tips (lighting rods?) on the red-roof gables
Some kind of tower/spire hiding behind the red roof?
DIGGING DEEPER
Well, let’s gamble on the flag. If you google “RED COUNTRY FLAGS,” you get this:
That team got to the right flag. The Warrensburg champ writes, “Thank goodness this was the one time you left the flag in for an actual clue.” Here’s the initial guess from the super-sleuth in Clinton, CT:
Funny: in looking at this week’s view on my phone, I thought I recognized the Canadian flag flying (unobscured by a certain canine), and I was all set to see where such a scene might be found in that vast country. Only after opening it up on the computer did I see the palm trees.
From a newcomer to the contest:
I had just subscribed to my first ever paid Substack (yours) 10 mins before I sent last week’s answer, and I had no idea that the quality of missives from your OG patrons would be so fine. Well, even though lots of people nailed it, at least I felt like a winner getting it right first time (Lake Placid). This week’s view is a good deal more challenging, but going with my gut (I read with some amusement this week your summation of the various studies of “gut shot” efficacy): Hagåtna in Guam, because the cars are all Japanese, and it seems Pacific, foliage definitely tropical, big military presence, and in the background is what looks like a fortress.
I don’t think anyone will get it this week. Very hard.
But he follows up with the correct answer:
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