VFYW: Keep On Truckin'

For contest #453, we explore a touristy area with a grisly past.

(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.)

The winner of last week’s contest passed his prize on to a friend:

Gosh, Chris, that’s a surprise! My confidence in that window selection was so low — unlike the window in that South Georgia Island church back in 2022, where I will remain convinced until my dying day that my (s)election was stolen!

I’m very grateful for the prize, and I’m hoping you can donate the two annual subscriptions to a “worthy cause.” My friend is an employment lawyer in DC who wishes he was still actively practicing, but instead he will really enjoy Andrew’s smart insights and analysis. I’ll just keep subscribing to the Dish as is.

We’ll see how much time I have for the VFYW in the next few weeks, since I’m going in for surgery to complete the top-to-bottom reinforcement of my spine on Wednesday!

Speedy recovery! A quick note from the Riverwoods super-sleuth:

I really enjoyed last week’s write-up, and I think it’s because I know so little about Africa in general that when the VFYW is there, I’m more intrigued. Thanks to everyone for all the interesting history lessons and stories.

For a quick taste of a VFYW history, our super-sleuth in Warrensburg recalls a window in Fayetteville, Arkansas we posted in September 2013:

I have a conference I’m leaving for tomorrow, and I will actually be staying at the same hotel where the photo from contest #171 was taken:

I admit I would geek out if I get anywhere close to the same view! If so, I’ll send a comparison shot.

He follows up:

I do, indeed, have nearly the exact same view as contest #171!

I’m in room 910, whereas that contest was room 708. But still!

In that September 2013 contest, Warrensburg wrote:

I love the View from Your Window Contest. I eagerly look forward to it every week ... and I’m terrible at it. I rarely get even a whiff of a correct answer, but I enjoy playing all the same, and I maintain a perhaps naive hope that one day there will be a city I recognize when I visit the Dish on Saturday.

And nowadays, he’s one of the most talented sleuths we have! Who serves up the best history reports.

On to this week’s view, “Befuddled in Brookline” writes:

Ugh, I don’t think we’ve had a contest this brutal in a while. Maybe I’m just tired of seeing leftover snow, but my eyes kind of glazed over while trying to spot clues in this landscape.

North America is about all I can muster. Judging from the tall snow-markers in the driveway, this place must get decent snowfall. Those look like train tracks running parallel to the road through the middle of the image, and since there don’t appear to be wires overhead, I guess they are diesel trains, not electric.

Given the alpine-looking trees and the proximity to some pretty imposing mountains, I was thinking perhaps somewhere on the way to the ski resorts in Vermont or in Colorado, where Amtrak runs diesel-powered trains through various towns. Or even Canada, for that matter — maybe somewhere in Alberta or British Columbia, where there are train routes.

But the clock is ticking and I have no leads, so I will go with Revelstoke, BC, Canada — because it apparently gets a lot of snow, has train tracks running through it, and it’s close to some serious skiing.

The super-sleuth in Alexandria gets to the right country — the US of A:

OMG, this looks so much like a condo in Ketchum, Idaho, near Sun Valley. I don’t have time to further sleuth, but I’m going on gut — and a fun trip there last summer :)

Another goes with Steamboat Springs, CO — “solely based on memory lane”:

I was a ski bum for six months in Steamboat after college back in 1988 ... and this picture took me back. Of course looking at Google’s map today, I couldn’t even find the rented house in Steamboat that I shared with four friends from the East Coast that winter …

Another goes with simply “Silverthorn, CO.” A newcomer to the contest names the right state:

Big Bear Lake, California? It’s where I’ve fished, water skied, snow skied, attended Oktoberfest, a Biker rally and a Pride festival. (I did not lose my virginity here, nor am I a subscriber.)

Our super-sleuth in Bend gets much closer:

That white car looks like a Jeep Cherokee, and the little roundel in front of the side mirror confirms that it is:

Jeeps are found mostly in the US and Canada. Looks like lots of juniper trees in that view. Utah? Nevada? Oregon? Idaho? I don’t know. Just a guess: South Lake Tahoe, California.

Here’s another bid for the Tahoe area:

We (my wife and I) are guessing Kings Beach, CA.

Our process: it looks like the USA or Western Canada, because of all the evergreen trees and bigger mountains. At first, we thought a ski town (steep roofs) or a mining town, because we saw some shotgun shacks. We thought it was on the dry side of the mountains because there’s little snow accumulation — so we were going to guess SE Oregon or S Idaho. We also thought it was a higher elevation because the shrubs in front of the house look like shrubs near us in the Cascades. It’s hard because there are few landmarks around.

But then!

I realized it’s a place that normally gets lots of snow but hasn’t this year. So I Googled “ski town that hasn’t got a lot of snow this year.”

So we moved south. I’ve never been to that area, but Google Maps has! And the area has the feel of a big valley or lake. I poked around a little on Google street view and found this picture from Skylandia Park, on the coast of Lake Tahoe:

And those mountains seem similar. Not too jaggedy. I don’t have all day, so I took stab at a place from Google Maps — Kings Beach, at the top of the lake:

We are really loving doing the VFYW on Saturday mornings. Hopefully this contest is still around in 10 years, so our son will be old enough to play too.

Our super-sleuth in Sydney got some help this week:

We are away at a friend’s farm in the Southern Highlands, and on first look I thought this week’s contest was going to be tough. But my friends came to the rescue. One asked, “What are you doing?”, and once I explained the VFYW (for a simple idea it can take some time to do this … “So there’s this weekly newsletter...”), they took a look.

I threw out that I thought it could be something like Aspen or Whistler, to which one friend said, “There’s no way; it’s much lower, like Lake Tahoe.” Ummm ok newbie … except ten minutes later, we found the right view, followed by a few minutes of Google Maps cruising to find the exact house.

My friends now think this contest is simple and are amazed when I say some views can take hours to unpack. I’m going to go find that one from Africa that no one could get and put my friends in their place …

Chini gets to the place:

He also writes:

Every so often we get one of these views that features a location I’ve been to — well, sorta. Years ago I passed through this town on Amtrak’s California Zephyr. While doing so, I managed to read a massive history of the transcontinental railroad written by a professor at my college, in which this town and surrounding area feature rather prominently.

I suspect other window hunters will have lots more to tell about that, but here’s a shot from the 1940s looking back from the train station towards our viewer’s location:

From our Burner super-sleuth:

I surrender this week. I’m snowboarding all week, so I didn’t have much time, but I don’t think it mattered. My initial thought was Truckee, CA, but the view also evokes the Washington Cascades (Roslyn, Cle Elum?). The biggest clue was vague — train tracks?

So my guess is: No Idea, USA.

The super-sleuth in Raleigh will be shocked to learn that he guessed the right town this week:

Well, what do you think the over / under is this week for correct guesses? I will take 2. Seriously, I am completely flummoxed and decided it was OK to submit an incorrect entry, given that my likelihood of solving this is didly / squat.