See The U S A

Hope you and the kitties have a great Thanksgiving, too, Thomas.

 

The altitude differs from their last photo updates, you can see more stuff earlier at higher altitudes so it is just a filler. The only date that matters is the one posted on street level. They don't drive down dead ends or dirt roads. I love Google Earth because it helps me to be nearer my life's memories from any where. I think the most shocking thing I saw was my old home across the street from Jay Demaret was razed and a city bus park was built with the entrance about where my front porch once was. It had a wrap around front porch that I would set out on and setup the record player and listen to all the records we had. I have photos from the Valentines Day Snow when we were let out of school at lunch time because it was getting really nasty out. I had this big plastic see thru bag and a ton of Valentines Cards over my shoulder. I played out in the snow with my sister and we would play until our hands got too cold then run into the house and stand in front of the little space heater to warm up then back out again. Now my friend that lived directly across the street, house and the one next to it were finally razed and all the homes going up Airline have been razed. It was part of the beautification starting with that bus park on our old lot. I think I might live long enough to still see some major changes take place in my home town. The old Akins Drugstore was leased a long long time ago and a printing shop was opened there but my last visit on google earth shows it has changed to another business. Hilshers Home furnishings was directly next door and in 1971 I bought a lot of furniture from the store but the store add on had been there since the late 50s and I and a lot other kids had our names scratched into the wet cement on the foundations., that new store section has been gone now for who knows how long. There is no sign of what was there when I was a kid. I remember the man who had the soda fountain leased and his name was Bill Nelson and I saw him one time when I came home from the Army and he was selling life insurance.

 

That might be what one may look like but when google started this adventure they subbed all the mapping and just common unmarked cars were used by private owners. Over time they had to distort human images because they received a lot of flak for privacy invasion. etc I checked out a little town north of Houston on 290 and I swear I moved thru a red light on a corner and the sky was pretty and blue using street level, turned around and headed back the way I came and the sky was dark and cloudy like two different days or something, really weird. I was looking at Airport Authority property of the Houston International because as a kid I was at a dirt track watching car racing with my folks in the very early 50s. My friend who retired from the airport authority of Houston told me that the old race track was on airport grounds now all grown up and will one day be used as expansion but he actually drove out to the site and inspect it because both of us were the same age and he too had gone to that track as a kid. Sure enough from altitude you can actually see the shape of the track still there after 60 years but just grown over. The stands were wood of course and had long since been torn down. Another track in Houston was Meyers Speedway and it began as a track built in a cow pasture, it finally closed after 50 years of use and it went back to exactly what it had been before, a cow pasture way out on south main surrounded by thousands of homes but never the less still home to the cows.

 

I was looking at Apple Maps on my phone, which has a much newer photo of our neighborhood than Google. That made me wonder if Apple is collecting their own images, so I found this... https://maps.apple.com/imagecollection/ Very interesting because it even includes people collecting images on foot (pedestrian with back packs), lol.