Local questions

The Foresthill Bridge over the North Fork American River, northeast of Auburn, California, is the highest bridge in California, with a road deck that’s 730 feet (or 220 meters) above the river. The steel cantilever bridge, also known as the Auburn-Foresthill Bridge or the Auburn Bridge, is situated some 35 miles (or 56 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento. Opened in 1973, the bridge carries both pedestrian and road traffic.

The Presidio of San Francisco is a 1,491-acre former US Army installation in the northwest corner of the city, at the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge, transferred to the National Park Service when it was vacated by the military in 1994. Today, the Presidio is a thriving urban park with a unique mix of residential communities, businesses, historic sites, recreation areas, forests, grasslands, beaches and bluffs, connected by a network of hiking and biking trails. In 1996, after considering a sale of the Presidio, it was effectively privatized by transfer of its management to the Presidio Trust, a federal government corporation tasked with making the Presidio self-sufficient and independent of direct taxpayer support. The Presidio Trust now manages most of the park, with the National Park Service managing the coastal areas, both working in partnership with the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.

Auckland’s Sky Tower is 328 metres (or 1,076 feet) high to the top of its mast, making it the tallest freestanding structure in the Southern Hemisphere. On clear days, the Skydeck observation deck on Level 60, just below the mast at 220 meters (or 720 feet) above street level, offers 360-degree views over distances of up to 80 kilometres (or 50 miles). The Sky Tower is open daily from 10 am – 8 pm, with last entry at 7.30 pm.

The first ever Super Bowl was played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on January 15th, 1967, when it was known as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. The contest did not formally adopt the Super Bowl name until Super Bowl 3 in 1969. The game was between the National Football League champions, the Green Bay Packers, and the American Football League champions, the Kansas City Chiefs. The Packers won, defeating the Chiefs 35-10, and Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr was named MVP. It is the only Super Bowl to have been simulcast by two networks, as NBC had the rights to televise AFL games and CBS held the broadcast rights to NFL games. The LA Coliseum has only hosted the Super Bowl twice, the second time being Super Bowl 7 in 1973.

Wyatt Earp, who died on January 13th, 1929, was cremated and his remains are interred in a burial plot at the Hills of Eternity Memorial Park, a Jewish cemetery in Colma, California. At the time of his death, the former Old West lawman was living in Los Angeles with his Jewish wife, Josephine Marcus, and she arranged for Earp’s ashes to be buried in the Marcus family plot in Colma, near her native San Francisco. When Josephine died in 1944, her cremated remains were buried alongside those of her husband. That Wyatt Earp’s ashes were buried in Colma was not widely known for many years, but the grave’s granite marker was stolen in 1957 after a newspaper publicized the grave’s location, and the thieves also reportedly dug down in a failed attempt to locate Wyatt Earp’s ashes. The stolen headstone was found three months later in undergrowth on Crystal Springs Road in San Bruno. A new black marble headstone was erected in the late 1990s, replacing the existing marker which is now on display at the nearby Colma Historical Association museum.

There is a path going around the whole of False Creek which is part of the longer Vancouver Seaside Greenway, an uninterrupted waterfront pathway running from the Vancouver Convention Centre, along the Stanley Park Seawall to English Bay, and then around False Creek past Granville Island to Kitsilano Beach. The entire False Creek section is approximately 8.5 km (or 5.3 miles) long and has many access points. A good starting point in downtown Vancouver is Sunset Beach Park near Burrard Bridge. From there, the path goes under Burrard Bridge, Granville Bridge and Cambie Bridge, past Science World and the Olympic Village and onwards to Granville Island and Kitsilano Beach Park. Returning to downtown Vancouver over Burrard Bridge is an option, or take one of the frequent ferry boats from Granville Island or Vanier Park Maritime Museum back to Sunset Beach. The path is divided down the centre, with walkers and joggers required to keep on the side closest to the water, and cyclists and inline skaters on the other side.

The 1980 movie Somewhere in Time was mostly filmed on Mackinac Island, Michigan, with much of the film centered around the Grand Hotel, and other scenes filmed at the sound stage of The Mission Point Film Studio and Fine Arts Building (now Mission Point Resort). Some scenes were also filmed in Chicago, Illinois. Directed by Jeannot Szwarc, Somewhere in Time was a film adaptation by Richard Matheson of his 1975 novel Bid Time Return, although the setting for the novel is the Hotel del Coronado near San Diego rather than the Crown Hotel on Mackinac. The film starred Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, and Christopher Plummer, and during filming, the cast and crew were based at The Inn on Mackinac. Cars had to be brought in especially for the movie as the island is substantially free of motor vehicles.

American singer-songwriter Christina Grimmie died, aged 22, after being shot following her performance at The Plaza Live in Orlando, Florida, on the evening of June 10th, 2016. As she met with fans after the show, 27-year-old Kevin James Loibl approached the singer and shot her once in the head and twice in the chest before shooting and killing himself. Despite attempts to resuscitate her at the scene, Grimmie was declared dead after being taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center. It emerged that Loibl had an infatuation with the singer and traveled 100 miles from his home in St Petersburg, Florida to attend her concert, bringing two handguns, loaded magazines, and a hunting knife into the venue. Grimmie rose to prominence initially through performances on her popular YouTube channel and later secured a recording contract after appearing as a contestant on season six of NBC’s The Voice television show, where she was coached by Adam Levine. She was buried in a private ceremony at Berlin Cemetery in New Jersey.

The San Francisco 49ers NHL football team got its name from the nickname ‘forty niners‘ given to the first wave of fortune seekers who flocked to Northern California in 1849 during the gold rush era. The team retained San Francisco in its name despite moving some 32 miles outside the city in 2014 to a new home stadium, the Levi’s Stadium, in Santa Clara, a suburb of San Jose. While headquartered and having training facilities in Santa Clara since 1988, the 49ers had previously always played in the city of San Francisco since its founding in 1946, first at Kezar Stadium, and later Candlestick Park.

Chambers Bay Golf Course is a municipal public golf course, owned by Pierce County, located in University Place, southwest of Tacoma, Washington. Opened in June 2007 on the site of a former sand and gravel mine overlooking Puget Sound, Chambers Bay hosted the 2010 US Amateur and 2015 US Open Championships. The 18-hole championship golf course was designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr.

Some of the best times to observe bioluminescence in northern California’s Tomales Bay inlet are on completely dark, moonless nights in late summer or fall. The bioluminescence is caused by tiny marine plankton known as dinoflagellates, which emit blue-green light when the water is agitated by wave action or a boat cutting through the surface. It is thought that the light emission is the dinoflagellate’s defense response to ward off predators. There are several commercial kayak tour operators in the area that organize night time paddles in Tomales Bay to view the phenomenon. Ideal conditions for bioluminescence are total darkness, with calm waters and relatively warm surface temperatures.

Spinning Chandelier, BC artist Rodney Graham’s giant chandelier art installation under the north end of the Granville Bridge in Vancouver, illuminates, descends and spins for two minutes at noon, 4 pm and 9 pm daily. The 4.2 metre-wide chandelier is made of stainless steel and over 600 polyurethane faux crystals, and was installed on the underside of Granville Bridge at Beach Avenue in 2019. The $4.8 million piece of public art was sponsored by Westbank Corp, developer of the nearby Vancouver House condo tower.

The San Diego-Coronado Bridge follows a curved route across San Diego Bay between Coronado and San Diego in order to achieve a water clearance of 200 feet (or 61 meters) at its highest point with just a gradual incline of the bridge. The water clearance was designed so that aircraft carriers from the nearby Naval Base San Diego could pass under the bridge. The total bridge length, including approaches, is 2.1 miles (or 3.4 kilometers). A shorter, straight bridge taking the most direct route across the bay would require a much steeper grade to achieve the same water clearance.

Day-use entry to Jalama Beach is charged at $10 per vehicle, and leashed dogs are also welcome, with proof of current rabies vaccination, for an additional for $3 per dog. The entry fee is payable at the Ranger Kiosk as you drive in at the gate. Annual day-use permits are also available, with discounts for seniors, veterans and Santa Barbara County residents. There is a grocery store and grill restaurant on site, along with a picnic area with tables. Jalama Beach is open for day use from 6 am to sunset daily.

American actor John Wayne was born in a house on South 2nd Street in Winterset, Iowa, on May 26th, 1907. Born Marion Robert Morrison, he only spent a few early years in Winterset, where his father was a pharmacist, before the family moved, eventually settling in Southern California. The house still stands today and has been restored to reflect its appearance in 1907. The John Wayne Birthplace Museum is located nearby at the corner of John Wayne Drive and Washington Street, and offers self-guided tours of the birthplace house and museum.

The Tennessee Valley Trail from the parking lot to the Tennessee Beach cove is approximately 1.7 miles (or 2.8 kilometers) and the easy hike to the beach takes around 30 minutes. This popular trail on the Marin Headlands gets very busy, particularly at weekends, so arriving early is always advisable. Dogs are not permitted on the trail. The parking lot and trailhead are located at the end of Tennessee Valley Road, where there are restrooms and a picnic table, but no drinking water, so bring a drink with you.

Menai Suspension Bridge has narrow arches with a width restriction of 2.6 metres and a height limit of 4.7 metres. HGVs, large lorries, and buses will normally use Britannia Bridge, the other bridge crossing the Menai Strait between the Isle of Anglesey and the mainland, which is subject to less restrictive width and height limits. During periods of high winds, when Britannia Bridge is closed to high-sided vehicles, the Menai Bridge offers an alternative crossing route, provided vehicle size limits are observed.

The Angeles Crest Highway (or State Route 2) between La Cañada Flintridge and Wrightwood, California, goes through the Angeles National Forest. The road is 66 miles (or 106 kilometers) end-to-end and passes through the San Gabriel Mountains, reaching a summit of 7,903 feet (or 2,409 meters) at the Dawson Saddle. The Angeles Crest Highway is normally closed over winter between Islip Saddle and Vincent Gap due to avalanche risk. A detour may be followed from the Angeles Crest Highway by taking the Angeles Forest Highway turning at Clear Creek and continuing to Wrightwood via Mount Emma Road, Fort Tejon Road, and the Big Pines Highway.

The area of San Francisco now known as Cow Hollow was so named because it was an area of the the city where settlers in the mid-1800s established dairy farms, attracted by the natural fresh water sources and good grazing land for cows. The area, then known as Spring Valley, was a verdant area of meadows, natural springs, and sand hills which, by the 1880s sustained over 30 dairies supplying milk to San Francisco’s burgeoning population, by which time the name Cow Hollow was in widespread use. San Francisco’s continued growth and changing demographics eventually drove the dairies, and their cows, out of the city, and the area was substantially redeveloped for residential use. Today, the Cow Hollow neighborhood is bounded by Lombard Street, Van Ness Avenue, Green Street, and The Presidio, and some of the original dairy farmhouses still stand among the area’s houses, shops and restaurants.

Dirk Hartog Island, off Western Australia’s Gascoyne coast, can be reached by vehicle-carrying barge, boat or small plane. The privately-operated landing barge operates daily on-demand for transporting one four-wheel-drive vehicle and trailer at a time from Shelter Bay, Steep Point. Pre-booking the barge in advance is advisable as the island has a limit of 20 vehicles at any one time. A high-clearance four-wheel-drive vehicle is needed to reach Steep Point and to explore the island. In addition to private boats, return boat transfers from Denham jetty to the island are available for foot passengers. The crossing takes approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes and can be arranged when booking accommodation. A light aircraft can be chartered through Shark Bay Aviation to transfer passengers direct from Monkey Mia Airport to Dirk Hartog Island airstrip.