Google Earth

My brother in Saipan just told me about this program, and loving geography, maps and all I just Had to get it (it's free, afterall).   The resolution is about 1 meter-ish  from aerial photography and they also use satellite imagery. 

So for my first bit of fun, of course I found my house and I could see our cars in the driveway.
Then I moved on across the planet to Saipan. 

Here is a first glance at this distant, yet domestic, Island.   Now for a mini Tour...the arrow near the top is where my brother's home is, and the arrow at the bottom is actually the island of Tinian, and you can see the runways where all the bombers took off during the bombing campaign over Japan during WWII, including those carrying the Atomic Bombs.   Near the bottom of Saipan is the International Airport, which in its day also served as WWII runways, where my uncle departed from and disappeared over Japan in 1945.

For a closer shot (Sorry, I love this stuff!), the arrow is again my brother's home, which is near the mountain top, so he has a view of this beautiful blue lagoon, the tiny island Managaha (I called it Gilligan's Island, we walked the perimeter in 10 minutes) and the main town. 

Comments

[Joel Frederick]

Google Earth is one of the coolest mapping programs around. When I first downloaded it and installed, I didn't get to bed until really late in the evening (early in the morning) just looking at things....

You can even see the shadow on the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

[optionalg]

google is taking over the world... and _they_ know where you live

[Donna]

Yep, between them and Walmart...maybe the new society will be referred to as WaGoo!!

[Joel Frederick]

Here are the coordinates for the Eiffel Tower...

48 51' 32"N 002 17' 45"E

Notice the shadow!