VFYW: Don't Mess With Google

For contest #407, we discover a bat cave, the Joker, and Wonder Woman.

(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.)

Here’s a concluding note from the romantic husband who provided the side-puzzle from Puerto Rico:

What a happy surprise to wake up to. It is a wholly remarkable skill that the sleuths have all cultivated. I hadn’t remembered how close it was to the airport. It will be our first stop after we arrive in April and I’ll share an update after we come home. Hopefully my wife will find this as sweet and endearing as I do :)

Please share my heartfelt thanks to those who found the exact spot and tree stump. We will surely take pictures at the “family tree” when we return. Thank you again for your help. It was a real kindness for you to indulge my hope and for the sleuths to spend their time helping a stranger. 

From the winner of last week’s contest:

Oh wow! I’m very happy to have won an art-related contest. I’ll take the Dish subscription, please, mainly because our coffee table is always too full of my stuff to add another book ...

Having won last week, I’m totally stumped on this week’s view. The pyramid-like building on the right with the stepped sections protruding from it is obviously distinctive, but very hard to search for. All I can say is that the long, low, four-lane, no-frills bridges and the extensive greenery give me an impression of North America, but after that I’m stuck!

Here’s a followup from the super-sleuth in Bethlum who finds public art every week:

I had a chance to see an Impressionist exhibit at the Norton Museum today and found this picture by Alfred Sisley — one of those artists who hung out around the Maison Fournaise from last week’s view:

Let’s hope no one is giving up the VFYW for Lent this year.

From the wine geek in San Francisco:

Happy Valentine’s Day Eve, if that’s a thing. Shiela is working the next few evenings, so the holiday doesn’t mean much over here.

Can I just say that every time I looked at this week’s VFYW, I wanted to get out the Windex and clean the filthy window we’re looking through. I’m sure many others felt the same way. I guess the dirty window was one way of making the view more difficult.

Our previous winner on Vashon Island writes, “Props to the photographer for including an ‘impression’ of themself in the window.” That mystery is solved by the super-champ in Berkeley:

Apparently a familiar fiend took this week’s photograph:

Half of this photo is an empty roof. A third of it’s sky. Almost a third of the landscape to the left is effectively invisible because of a blinding sunset and filthy glass. The rest is obscured by gathering darkness BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN.

Honestly! I needed to chop off a third of the photo just to keep from being blinded when I boosted the exposure level to a point where I could make out that the dark area was little more than random pixels because the camera was focused on the foreground roof ventilation fans!

The only obviously noteworthy thing in the photo is that slanty sliver of skyscraper at the right edge, looking all shiny and new in the damned setting sun. But it wasn’t the only clue. My favorite turned out to be the intriguing boat that’s moored across the river:

Another false flag? From a married couple who’s won the contest:

This one’s a baffler, but it sure looks like the Mississippi River — or possibly the Minnesota River. No time to go looking, though. We figure our guess to be the Mississippi River, maybe south of Lake Pepin — which, admittedly, is most of the river at that point. But it’s clearly not NOLA.

Here’s the beginning of an entry from a previous winner:

On first look, my anxiety on being able to get this one was high. A photo of a river, some bridges, the edges of some buildings, a rising or setting sun, a couple of exhaust stacks, and a metal chimney. Not a lot to go on!

But the lack of clues meant clinging to the very few that are offered. I assume we are in the USA, as we’ve had a couple of international ones the past few weeks. Then there’s that distinctive, sort of pyramid/triangular shaped building on the right side …

Here’s the View From Your Chini:

A first-timer to the contest names the right city: