Malheur County, Oregon is located in a “West Coast U.S. state”, but (mostly) in the Mountain Time Zone. The western part of the Florida Panhandle (e.g. Pensacola), is located in an “East Coast U.S. state”, but in the Central Time Zone. So, most of the time when it’s 2:50 (am or pm) in the latter, it’s 1:50 in the former – hence the validity of the above conversation.
To add to the oddity: on the fall night that Daylight Saving Time reverts to Standard Time, there’s a period of one hour (starting the minute after 1:59am CDT) when the Central Time Zone has “jumped back” to 1:00am CST, but the Mountain Time Zone is still on its last hour of Daylight Saving Time. During this hour, the clocks of our Oregonian and Floridian phone-buddies should display the same time.
Well, Hawaii’s Parker Ranch (on the Big Island) is the largest ranch in the US. This was something to amaze the tourists from Texas, etc. Upon checking my cite, it appears it has been qualified to one of the largest
Traveling east through Kallispell Mt. just a few miles before you enter the Rockies, there use to be a tourist trap on the north side of the road, that boasted of a crooked house and had a huge rocking chair by the road to draw attention. We stopped there once and as we started down the trail from the parking lot to the crooked house, the first thing we noticed was that all the trees were leaning in towards the middle. I soon began to feel pressure within my body, the first thing that came to mind was a magnetic feeling. The farther down the trail we went the stronger the feeling became. We didnt continue on down the trail but stopped at the crooked house. I sure wish I’d gone on down the trail to see exactly was happening in the center… darn. Anyone ever been there? Or experienced the same magnetic feeling? And see trees growing in one direction?
I clicked to mention the Panama Canal alignment and found someone beat me to it … by five years! :smack:
The weird salt-water pump makes Europe warmer than latitude would suggest. If my understanding is correct, the melting of Greenland’s fresh water in response to global warming would paradoxically lead to Europe cooling.
My 3rd-grade teacher told us it was absurd that Australia was called “continent” instead of Greenland, which was much bigger. This made a big impression on one of the 3rd-graders who knew she was wrong.
I nominate this factoid for Best of Thread !
:mad: The thread got very interesting responses. It wasn’t moved until #222 and then immediately shut down for 5 years.
I don’t know if this counts, but…when I go down the street to the freeway, I can either go left/South on West I-80/East I-580 or right/North on East I-80/West I-580. Either way will get me to The Left Coast or the I-5 corridor depending on which part of each I want.
Apropos of nothing; I’ve always wondered if the line in the song Substitute by The Who that goes, “The North side of my town faces to the East, which faces South,” was a reference to an actual locale with such an oddity of geographical nomenclature.
They have about a 125 mile land boundary starting at the mouth of the Tornio River and extending northwestward to the point where both countries meet Norway.
The Gulf of Bothnia separates Sweden and Finland for the most part.
There is a natural lake of asphalt in Trinidad, people and even companies have just scooped it up and it replenishes. There have been some discoveries of unusual microbes and fungi in it.
I’m afraid you’ve been tricked, as suggested by the underlining I’ve added.
My personal “geographical oddity” is that three homes I’ve lived in were “hard to get to.”
[ul][li] For one, the shortest legal round-the-block car trip required seven separate streets.[/li][li] The “Avenue” in the street address of another was a cliff-side stub usable only to park a car. (That was 30 years ago. I was told that the cliff was eroding 1 foot per year on average and Google Maps confirms that the “Avenue” is completely gone now. I wonder if they’ve changed the house’s street address? )[/li][li] To drive from my present home to one of the nearest large towns is a nearly straight route, paved, clear and through, but missing from most maps. When an acquaintance visited the first time he went ten miles out of his way to use the mapped route. I told him about the alternate route, he drove 3 miles, feared the desolate-looking night-time road, and U-turned, now wasting 16 miles altogether.[/li][/ul]
Sweden and Finland do have a land border, at least on Market Reef. That border is in itself a geographical oddity due to a border correction in 1981 to bring the Finnish built lighthouse back into Finland after it was built on the wrong side of the border: 6 - Market Reef - Big Think
Yes, I completely forgot about that one. The light house was built on the Swedish side of the border because that was the only suitable place on the island to do it.
I just checked on Google Earth. It is true! Africa’s a lot further north than people think, and Maine is a lot further east (it could easily be in the next time zone).
The state of Texas, if flipped-over on it’s eastern edge, would reach the Atlantic Ocean. If flipped-over on it’s western edge would reach the Pacific ocean.
I went to school with a guy who lived just south of Detroit. He loved to tell us how he had cousins who lived in Michigan, and cousins who lived in a suburb of Atlanta. It took less time to drive to the Atlanta cousins’ house.
Eire, MI to Copper Falls, MI (in the Upper Peninsula), just over 10 hrs; to Kennesaw, GA, 9 3/4 hrs.
