November 20, 2004

The virtual California coastline. Over 20,500 photographs (totaling over 134GB) of the current California coast are now online, covering from the Oregon Border (42N latitude) to the Mexican Border (32.5N latitude), except for the Vandenberg AFB restricted area. An additional 5833 images from 1972, 8000 images from 1979, 4173 images from 1987, and 1074 images from 1989 are now online.

A friend of mine is doing a virtual bike ride, using this (and other sites; I can mine them if anyone's interested) to guide him.

posted by goofyfoot 20 years ago
  • I used to live at the top left of this photo. The road snaking upwards is Mulholland Hwy. I would ride my bike down the mountain to snorkel in the kelp beds at the bottom left. And then ride back up the mountain. At night there were often rattlesnakes on the Hwy soaking up the heat of the asphalt. Thanks for this site. I'm off to bed so haven't looked at everything but what I've seen so far is fantastic. Someday I'd like to take an actual bike ride the length of route 1.
  • Thnaks, goofyfoot -- these are handsome pictures, and give us a different way to travel the coast.
  • Fantastic! Now I see why people move there.
  • Awesome! I was just looking at the Millenium Coral Reefs Archive the other day.
  • I'm curious as to how your friend is doing a virtual bike ride. That's sounds very cool indeed.
  • Is the the project that Babs was trying to stop from posting pix of her house online?
  • @Hawthorne: yes
  • Wow, how cool is this? I used to live in this picture on the second floor of that mustard-colored building with the blue tarp on top. At the time it was pink, had no tarp, and there was a lovely pretentious French bistro on the first floor. Hey kids, if you ever have the opportunity and the slightest interest, drop everything and move to the beach in California. It'll all work out, and the memories of that time will still make you warm and happy when you get old.
  • I lived at the top of this photo for a couple of years. Walking distance to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.
  • Tracicle: Cool! Ever surf Pleasure Point?
  • Name that itch, my online friend began this in late 2002. He starts, "I am riding towards Los Angeles now, I started last week, I am 16 miles east of Indiana, on SR 40. I don't have a web site, I guess this will do." And he's kept it up ever since. The thread is here, but a lot of the chatter is specific to one online community and because he's been doing this for two years many of the older links are broken. Still, isn't the concept great?
  • Two years? I can barely remember two years ago, let alone keep a project going that long. Props to him! Excellent stuff, goofy.
  • Nah, Hawthorne, never got into the surfing scene. I'm strictly a beach girl. Two minutes from Seabright and weekend bonfires. :)
  • Bonfires are good, tracicle.
  • Wow, Babs has a humongous home. Ok, maybe not as huge as this castle, but still very big. Is that speck on a chaise lounge near the pool/lagoon her, or maybe one of those on the balcony? Thanks, goofyfoot. This is beautiful. As someone who doesn't take many pictures when I'm travelling (and certainly wouldn't be in a position to take ones like these), I'm glad to be able to revisit some of those destinations through the coastal records. Here is where my dad took our family to show us the house where he rented a room when he first came to the U.S., and the park where he first encountered half-naked hippies. (The full-naked kind can be found here.) A search for Morro Bay turned up "The site of Mel Gibson's trailer from Lethal Weapon (maybe)"