VFYW: Don't Rest On Your Corals

For contest #424, we travel to a tropical paradise that needs protecting.

(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:

Wow! Thrilled to death to finally get the breakthrough! I’ll take the coffee table book please, as a tangible memento of the glory of a contest that’s come good. Thanks for running a great contest!

The winner of the Nashua contest just received a bonus prize I sent him:

I’ve been traveling for a few weeks and just got back into town. While I was away, I was notified that I received a mysterious package from “Prayer Bead Junction.” My birthday was a few days ago, so I thought it might’ve been a (strange?) present from a relative or something. Anyway, when I returned home, I opened it up to discover … it wasn’t prayer beads, but in fact a mint-condition, sandwich-contest issue of World Magazine that I wrote about!

There’s literally only one person in the world that could have ordered this for me. How amazing and mind-blowingly thoughtful of you to send this to me. This is really one of the best, most out-of-the-blue surprises I’ve had in ages. Thank you so much.

And thanks, too, for the View book! It’s cooler than I’d expected. I’m visiting my 82-year-old mother today, and after hearing me talk about the VFYW contest, she delighted in working on this week’s entry with me.

We always love to hear about family sleuthing. Here’s a followup on last week’s contest from the super-sleuth in College Park:

Oh, that was PITTSBURGH. I just moved there.

Below is a nice view from the window in Pittsburgh — not MY window, but that of the McAlister (Egyptian revival) mausoleum in Homewood Cemetery. I love the iridescence and streaky colors of the glass. The columns out front are something else, too:

Anyway, I offer these as penance for missing a VFYW in my own town.

Another followup comes from last week’s submitter — the super-sleuth in Ann Arbor:

I need to get this email out today, because I’m leaving for a family visit in Germany tomorrow. Thank you again for running my Pittsburgh photo last week. I’m saving the long read for a layover tomorrow. Looks like I’m going to learn a lot more about Richard Serra.

But there is so much more delightful art at the Carnegie Museum, and it’s hanged in such an inspiring way. One of our favorites is this painting by Asger Jorn, titled “Underdeveloped Ferocity”:

Yet another followup comes from the super-chef in Tucson:

The controversy around “Tilted Arc” reminded me of the Richard Serra sculpture we saw in Copenhagen at the Louisiana Museum (named for the three identically named wives of the original property owner) earlier this year. Serra’s “Gate in the Gorge” also constrains how people walk, but they walk through it rather than around it. It is a beautiful work illustrating his philosophy of the sculpture emerging from the site. I imagine that is what he thought he was doing with “Tilted Arc,” but in that case the site suggested interruption, whereas in this case it suggests invitation:

Serra’s “Gate in the Gorge” on left; Goldsworthy’s “Storm King Wall” on right

I can’t resist pairing that photo of “Gate in the Gorge” with a photo of Andy Goldsworthy’s running wall in upstate New York, which we saw on our 40th wedding anniversary trip in 2021, with the same friends who were with us in Copenhagen. It had a similar emotional effect on me.

On the window-accuracy dissents posted last week, the super-sleuth in Ridgewood writes, “The analysis of the Guatemala City window is becoming like the Zapruder film of the JFK assassination.” From the sleuth who submitted that Guatemala City pic:

After reading the heated — nay obsessive — discussion concerning the location of the Hyatt Centric window during the past two weeks of the VFYW, I’m not sure if I should apologize or be thanked for sending the submission without circling the exterior window! The sleuths are incredibly competitive! My error made your job tougher, sorry.

No apologies necessary! It definitely made for some fun among the obsessives — or rather, the especially obsessive obsessives. Like this one:

I have a major correction for my entry last week, in the interest of accuracy.

The incense cedar tree outside my window is ~6.5' DBH [diameter at breast height], with a circumference of 18'. In my reply to you, I first typed 6.5' DBH — then falling victim to the temptation of numeric inflation, I meant to swap out “6.5' DBH” with “circumference of 18'” — but in my haste, I simply substituted 6.5' with 18'. The tree is most obviously not 18' DBH, so sorry for the fake news!

I nearly banned him for the disinfo. For this next sleuth, it’s better late than never:

Sorry about this tardy followup. I saw that a recent VFYW was from San Luis Obispo, but that it didn’t include two of the most interesting features there. The first is the Dorn Pyramid. Below is a photo my wife took during a 2018 road trip to SLO. The other missed feature is the Motel Inn, the world’s first motel. It’s derelict now, but still amazing that it was there and remembered:

Another quick followup on the SLO contest comes from the UWS super-sleuth:

Like you, my husband and I look forward to a Down Under visit one of these days; it just hasn’t popped to the top of the list yet. I’ve got nothing specific to contribute this week — other than a quick shout-out to the Berkeley champ again for his film recommendations, and for his time and effort to include all those clips. Last week, I looked at the clip from Destination Wedding he posted for the San Luis Obisco contest, and I was on the verge of an asthma attack from laughing:

How did I miss that movie when it came out? Before the pandemic, my husband and I went to the movies every weekend, picking from the 21 (yes!) screens within a short walk of our apartment. If we didn’t see it on the big screen, we didn’t see it, period. But we’re going to watch this one at home.

On to this week’s view, a sleuth writes:

Several clues and possible red herrings are in the pic. For one, given the signs and marking on the road, it seems like somewhere folks drive on the left. Surprisingly, the US Virgin Islands are one such place! Also, the position of solar panels lead me to believe that the shot is facing roughly north, thus this is a bay on the western side of an island. So I’ll just give it a guess: St Thomas, USVI, USA.

The UWS super-sleuth goes with a different island:

Another good challenge — and a gorgeous view! I first went down the rabbit hole of those skylights, which remind me of almost-opened sardine cans. That took me to Barbados, but the mountains didn’t work.

She eventually got to the right place. The super-sleuth in Bend stuck with Barbados:

I’m going with Barbados because it apparently leads the world in per-capita rooftop solar water heaters. In fact, “The island’s 200,000 inhabitants now boast more than 50,000 SWH installations and save over 100,000 MWh of energy per year.” Solar water heaters aren’t very popular in the US, but Jimmy Carter had some installed on the White House roof in 1979:

But they were removed during the Reagan administration …

Giuseppe, the super-champ in Rome, looks more closely at those heaters:

The main clue here is obviously the solar water heater, with its peculiar shape (it’s not a cylinder, but has four rounded sides), the black caps, the brand name partly unreadable — maybe the first half is painted in a different, lighter color?

Here it is uninstalled:

Another sleuth jumps to the Pacific:

This is how lazy/horrible I am at this contest: I spent roughly 50 seconds staring at this photo, saw a cherry blossom, a palm tree, water and mountains and thought “ … maybe Japan?” And then I realized I will never get it and gave up, LOL!

I’ll throw in Kadena just to have a city. I do love reading everyone’s thoughtful entries though! Even if they give me massive travel FOMO.

One sleuth guesses simply “Kihei, Maui, Hawaii, USA.” Another goes with “Wailea, Maui, Hawaii, USA.” That state was the initial hunch for the super-sleuth in Bethlum:

First I thought we were in Hawaii, but the configuration of the harbor didn’t line up well with the coastal mountains in Hawaii. So, based on the quality of the houses in the view, I was off to look for affluent tropical regions. 

This is probably my favorite reimagined view from San Mateo so far:

For this week’s VFYW Reimagined, I went back to a more realistic but fanciful style to exaggerate the solar panels on the house in the foreground, the palm and other trees, the sea, the stylized mountains, and the dramatic clouds:

From the CO/NJ super-champ:

My wife and I are leaving today for a week in [redacted], so I hope to send you a candidate photo or two. I will have little time or computer access, so I have to dash this off quickly before we leave. At first glance, I thought I was going to have to take an L this week, as it looked very hard.

Clearly first world and tropical. My initial thought was Hawaii, but the way the sign on the road on the left-most margin of the view is facing revealed it to be a left-sided driving country.

He eventually got to the right country. So did the super-sleuth in Eagle Rock, who teases the right place with a mile marker:

My initial guess was Hawaii. I was off by roughly 4,639 miles.

Some enterprising sleuth with more time than sense could follow the mixologist’s lead and index initial guesses versus actual locations. The maximum possible miss would be 12,450.5 miles — half the circumference of the Earth.

Actually this is a stupid idea. Okay, more coffee ...

From the wine geek in San Francisco:

I think I found a convert to the VFYW. My brother in Hawaii (also named Chris) texted me on Friday night and asked for the new VFYW, so I sent it to him. The next morning he texted me back a TripAdvisor page for the very hotel that the VFYW was taken from. His added, “I haven’t figured out the window yet.” We obviously are cut from the same cloth, since I too am pretty good at finding the building and inept at picking out the right window once I have found the building — as my woeful performance last week demonstrated. I always seem to be one window or one floor off. I am sure that will be true this week.

Anyway, thanks for another good contest … and for dragging my brother into this madness.

Thanks for spreading the word! I continue to be amazed by the consistent and growing number of new paid subscriptions that the VFYW has generated since I started sending out the previewed version to our free subscribers in January. Last week’s contest in San Luis Obispo, for example, has garnered 35 paid subs, compared to 33 for Nellie Bowles’ episode and 19 for the main Dish. A big welcome and thank you to those new subscribers (and if you’d like to join them, here’s the link).

The SF super-sleuth hints at the right latitude:

This week feels like a Victorian outpost in the South Pacific. I spent a fair bit of time looking around New Zealand before realizing it is a bit too tropical for NZ. In fact, we are about 20 degrees of latitude north of Auckland.

Another gets closer:

At first I thought it was part of French Polynesia, because of the tall mountains in the background and the coconut palms. But that part of Oceania has narrower really sharp volcanic mountains, much like a shark’s teeth. Nor does this place seem to have the classic, reef-rimmed beach that’s typical of Polynesia and eastern Micronesia, so this picture is east of there.

Hmmm. Urbanized, clearly a well-developed tropical location in the South Pacific.  The lack of cars to show which side of the street they drive makes it tough. Hey, New Caledonia was recently in the news for some kind of unrest, right? And I recall reading that Noumea is one of the world’s most expensive cities to live in, and I know it’s quite modern. So, I’m going to sort of be guessy and say that’s Noumea, New Caledonia.

Nope, but we were in Noumea for contest #295. The super-sleuth in Sydney names the right country:

You left an incredible clue in last week’s results, if people just knew where to look. I’ve highlighted it in traditional Aussie green-and-gold:

So you are not (yet) visiting in person, but this window view is the next best thing! I reckon the last time VFYW was in Australia was for contest #384 in Hobart, last July. I remember that one extremely well because it was the first entry I ever made!

From another Aussie:

Maybe you should disqualify Australians this week. This one took me literally a minute. It’s a very Australian view. We love rooftop solar here — it’s currently generating 11.2% of all our electricity. We all get cold-called once or twice a week by someone selling solar panels under the “government solar rebate scheme.”

A sleuth in Yakima takes a stab at the city:

Solar panels pointed in two directions at low angles so +/- 20 degrees latitude. Apparently left-driving — lots of those in SE Asia, Oceania, Caribbean — but the far sign is ambiguous. Solar water collectors resemble the Australian Solaheat models. I speculate heat collection is better in the afternoon, so I suspect we're looking vaguely from the west/southwest, which would mean morning sun in east/northeast, hence Southern Hemisphere. Hills don’t look karsty. Wealthy enough to have a 10-story hotel and a developed waterfront with paved walk/bike trail. Water is an estuary, small bay, large lake or river, 1-5 miles wide with maybe 5-10 miles visible — not a lot of those in the Caribbean or Oceania on my atlas. 

I looks like the San Juans but with palms. I ended with a desperate dart toss (outside my latitude band), since I’m at a total loss this week. Sidney, Australia???

Nope, good guess though. The super-sleuth on Park Avenue names the right state in Australia:

Queensland is enormous — about 2.5 times the size of Texas, with 5.5 million people (most of whom are in and around Brisbane). It’s a beautiful but batshit crazy place. Think Florida with touches of Alabama. 

In his book about Captain Cook, the late Tony Horwitz has a great description of a weekend spent in north Queensland. Americans tend to underestimate the size of Australia, and I am often gently reminding friends proposing itineraries to me that if they do that, they will be spending about two days on domestic flights.

Anyway, any cocktail for Queensland has to involve a dark rum. Hopefully our maven can find a good Aussie rum in Austin.

Chini shows the way to the window:

This next sleuth names the right city at last:

G'day, mate. I was so excited at first, because this view looks vaguely like my home (I grew up on the windward side of O’ahu) — but alas, it quickly became apparent that this was a place of left-side drivers. While sad to rule out my homeland, I was also thrilled, as this narrowed down the available countries by about two thirds. White dividing lines and speed limits painted on the roads are also a clue. I figured I was looking at a touristy beach city in Australia.

Unfortunately, Australia is famously MASSIVE.