I spend almost as much time cruisin’ around Earth as I do commenting and replying in your blog! LOL

I have been ‘flying’ around the World for several years now, using Google Earth, which also has ’street views’.

http://earth.google.com/

I have always enjoyed looking at maps of all kinds, and when I ‘discovered’ GE it was like being given the keys to my Mom’s ‘53 Buick Roadmaster for the first time! FREEEEEDOM!

I use GE to mark places from my past, places I hear about in the news, places I’d LIKE to visit, etc., etc.

GE now includes closeup views of the ocean bottoms, Mars, the stars, and most recently views into the past, where you can watch a location change over time!

Plus there are THOUSANDS of images you can view that people who have been there have placed for your enjoyment! You can add your own, too!

You can put a ‘push pin’ anywhere you’d like to mark a spot, then add any information about that spot. You can save your ‘Places’ to archive them ‘in case…’ (it’s a PC, after all!). You can compile a group of ‘places’ and then ‘fly’ to them in a sort-of video progression.

I’m compiling a series of spots (including pictures that I’m collecting from searches online) that we visited back around 1976 that took us into Death Valley through the Panamint Mountains. We actually stopped for directions at THE MANSON RANCH (yes, Charlie may have been the bearded guy I spoke to through a barbed-wire fence *gulp*). It was about 10,000 miles from NOWHERE over almost impassable dirt trails (not roads), and we had already gone down some inclines that we could NOT have gone back up in our old 1963 Ford Econoline 2-wheel-drive van!

…and on and on!

Oh, wait! I don’t think it is available for Mac users, is it? Sorry!

…hah! Yet ANOTHER reason to ‘live’ with a PC! And for me it is possibly the BEST reason to use a PC.