Roadside Wisconsin, Part 2: Just About 45°N, 90°W

Posted on July 19, 2017 by admin

Wausau, Wisconsin, has a pleasant town square, a park surrounded by an assortment of shops and restaurants. No one but me remembered visiting there before, but we did in 2003, taking lunch at the Mint Cafe on the square. This year we went back to the cafe on the way up to the UP, on the last day of June. I think we even sat in the same booth.

The top card is from our ’03 visit. The bottom, from the recent visit. I like the ’03 card better. Less busy.
Lunch was just as good this time around. Hamburgers, fish, that kind of thing, in a uncontrived diner atmosphere. No one at the Mint was wearing a tux, as far as I could see.

Afterward we strolled around the square and a nearby street or two. We happened on the office of the Wausau/Central Wisconsin Convention & Visitors Bureau. Mostly we went in to use the restroom, but I also picked up a four-color glossy promo magazine suitably called Wausau, subtitled “Central Wisconsin.” On the off chance that it offered useful information. It did.

The magazine reminded me that not far from Wausau is a sign marking 45°N latitude, 90°W longitude. Or, as the magazine puts it, “Center of the North Half of the Western Hemisphere.” Also included: a nicely detailed map to help you get to that place (and other points of interest).

I learned about the location years ago. I think in high school, or even in junior high, I wondered where those four points on the Earth might be. So I got out the atlas and looked. Two were in remote southern oceans. One was in the absolute middle of nowhere in central Asia. And one was… in Wisconsin.

Years later, a coworker of mine originally from Wisconsin told me about the site — he’d grown up not too far away. And then I read about it, probably on Roadside America. Even so, I would have forgotten to visit on this trip had the magazine not reminded me. I was inspired. If we can stand on the Prime Meridian and Lilly can stand on the Equator, then by gar, we can stand at 45°N, 90°W.

So on July 2, after lunch again in Wausau on the way home — this time at a sandwich shop, part of a small local chain — we headed west on I-29 out of Wausau. The map’s directions are clear. I-29 west to Exit 150, then take Wisconsin H north to Wisconsin U, turn west. Follow U as it curves north and then curves west again. A sign marking 45°N, 90°W will be just past the second curve.

So we followed the directions. Got to the second curve. And then: nothing. No easily visible sign anyway. I’d had a somewhat hard time explaining to the rest of my family what we were doing out in the farm fields of central Wisconsin, when we could have been heading home, so things got a little testy in the car.

We turned around and went for another look, noticing a fellow mowing the grass around his house on a large riding mower (the rest of the nearby area was farmland). We stopped and rolled down our passenger side window, and looked his direction.

At once he took his earphones off, hopped off the mower, and came toward us. He looked the part of a modern farmer: a large man about my age in overalls and a short-sleeved shirt, with a pink face and gray in his hair. He also looked genuinely glad to see us.

“I’ll bet you know what we’re looking for,” I said.

He did. He explained that Marathon County had removed the existing sign just the week before, as part of putting a sign in the correct place. I had read that the sign wasn’t exactly at 45°N, 90°W. It was about 1,000+ feet off. Back whenever the county had first installed the sign, no one had GPS, so that wasn’t an issue. Now it is. (This is an issue for the tourist Equator and Prime Meridian, too.)

“They didn’t seem to think anyone would miss the sign,” he said. “I told them people come looking for it every day.”

The sign might be gone, but the original survey marker was still in embedded in concrete at the site, he said. He told us where to look. Remarkable how the mood in the car changed for the better after our short chat with a friendly farmer.

Before long we were there. This is what we found.

It might not be exactly 45°N, 90°W, but I wasn’t about to not stand at the point. Yuriko and Ann did too, in their turn. By now everyone was game.
The small temporary sign near the marker, to the right of me in the picture, was erected by Marathon County. It says:

45°N-90°W Geographic Marker
Site currently under
construction/relocation
Reopening September 12, 2017

There’s also a helpful map of the planned new site fixed to the temporary sign. The old site will be a small parking lot, with a path, or maybe a paved path, leading to the new and presumably GPS-correct marker.

On July 2, work had already started on the path.
We didn’t walk the 1,000 or so feet to the new site. If we’re ever back this way — and this part of central Wisconsin would make a good long weekend someday — we’ll surely take a look at the new marker.

You could think of it as a ridiculous tourist attraction, considering how arbitrary it is. After all, the Prime Meridian would be running through Paris had the French had their way — 2°20′14.03″ to the east, which would put 45°N, 90°W pretty close to, or even in, Green Bay. The body of water, not the town. I’m not going to figure it out exactly, though.

Somehow, I like the arbitrariness. It also reminds me that I’d like to visit Four Corners, too, which is even more arbitrary.

Vanity Map Update

Posted on March 5, 2017 by admin

Time to post the vanity map of states I’ve been to, color-coded, because there are updates. Mainly, South Carolina is now filled in. That makes 49 states and DC, leaving large lonely Alaska.

Color codes are the same, and pretty much idiosyncratic.

Green: Either lived in these places or visited so many times I’ve lost count. Very familiar.

Blue: Numerous visits covering a fair amount of the state or province, or one or two visits of strong intensity and some variety. Fairly familiar.

Orange: Spent the night at least once, saw a relatively limited number of places.

Pink: Passed through (on the ground) but didn’t spend the night.

White (no color): Never visited.

Vanity because it isn’t as if I studied hard and passed a battery of tests to gain entry, or crossed dangerous frontiers, or defied longstanding cultural prejudices, to be able to visit 49 states and DC. All it took was some time and some money, and the will do to so. Not everyone has those things, of course, but many millions do. Even so, it hasn’t cost a fortune, especially spread out over the 35-plus years of my adulthood (there’s no state I visited as a child that I didn’t return to later).

Moreover, this is the late 20th and early 21st centuries we’re talking about. Air travel might have its petty irritations and highways and bridges might be in sad need of repair in places, but on the whole the North American travel infrastructure is an easy-to-use marvel in our time. Just think: about five miles from my house is a highway (Interstate 90) on which I could, if I had a hankering to, drive through to Boston. Or if I went the other way, take the road all the way to Seattle in a few days, probably without more than intermittent delays.

Map Hero’s Laminated Gitche Gumee

Posted on February 4, 2016 by admin

You never know what’s lurking in the fine print. Usually that’s taken to be a bad thing, but yesterday I took a look at a map I’ve owned for years and discovered a fine thing in the fine print.

First, the map. It’s laminated, and so in excellent shape. I got it when we went up to northern Wisconsin in 2003. At 16¾ inches x 10⅝ inches, it’s beyond the capacity of my simple scanner, so here’s a large detail from the midsection of the map: instantly recognizable as the ice-water mansion Lake Superior.
Lake Superior Port Cities Inc., publisher of Lake Superior Magazine, published the map in 2001. It’s a quietly gorgeous map whose shadings not only indicate elevation above and below the surface of the lake, but are pleasing to the eye. Besides towns and roads, it notes all of the various state forests and parks along the shores of Lake Superior, plus the national lakeshores and the single national monument, Grand Portage in Minnesota.

Here’s a closeup of Keweenaw Peninsula, the UP’s UP, and a place I surely must see.
Very small versions of the Lake Superior Circle Tour sign mark a network of roads that circumscribe the lake. If I had the time, that’s a drive I wouldn’t hesitate to do. I remember the first time I visited Lake Superior — Labor Day weekend 1989 — I was driving between Munising and Marquette and I saw one of the signs. I hadn’t realized there was a Lake Superior version of the drive; the Lake Michigan Circle Tour signs can be seen even in the Chicago area and, in fact, I’ve done my own version of circum-driving that lake twice (once was that ’89 weekend).

Instantly I was taken with the notion of driving around Lake Superior. I was by myself and could have done it. I didn’t have my passport, but you didn’t need a passport to visit Canada in those days. I hadn’t planned to take any time off after Labor Day, but I could have called in sick for a few days, something I very rarely did. But no. I was entirely too responsible.

On the lake itself, the map also features lighthouses and the sites of notable shipwrecks. Some of the lighthouses are probably easy enough to see, but others are impossibly remote, such as the Stannard Rock Light, more than 20 nautical miles southeast of Keweenaw Point, slap in the middle of the lake.

As the for the wrecks, few will ever see them in the chilly Superior waters (average temp, 40 degrees F.). The most famed of them, naturally, is the Edmund Fitzgerald, but it has a lot of company, such as the Onoko, Henry Steinbrenner, John Owen, Western Reserve, Gale Staples, Niagara, Superior City and others.

A handful wrecks are marked but also noted “went missing,” such as the Owen and Manistee. To quote Wiki on that ship: “The Manistee was a packet steamship that went missing on Lake Superior on November 10, 1883. It was presumed to have sunk, with no surviving crew or passengers. The cause remains a mystery, and the wreckage was never discovered.” Sometimes Gitche Gumee just eats ships, it seems.

As for the fine print, way at the bottom right corner of the map, in about 3-point print, it says, “Design/Cartography by Matt Kania.” He’s easy enough to find: Map Hero, maker of custom maps. Looks like he’s done a lot of wonderful maps besides Superior. If I had any talent for it, I’d do the same.

Michelin’s Central Texas

Posted on February 3, 2016 by admin

Here’s another map of considerable usefulness and aesthetic value. This is a detail from the Michelin 2015 North America Road Atlas.

I bought the 2003 edition back when it was new, but by last year it was worn out, so I replaced it. Instead of providing a map or two for each state, as the larger Rand McNally does, Michelin divides North America into a grid of squares. Central Texas above happens to be on square 61. The system takes some getting used to, but on the whole it works.

I also still buy Rand McNally most years. Some things on those maps won’t be on Michelin and vice-versa, though since Rand McNally is 15¼ inches x 10¾ inches, and Michelin is 8 x 11, the former has more room for detail. Yet Michelin packs an amazing amount of detail, as good maps should.

Then there are state highway maps. In whatever state I pass through, I try to pick up one. They were always easy to find in Texas — every rest stop with bathrooms used to have them, and maybe still do. The lesson is, you can’t have too many maps.

Without maps around the house, how could you browse? Looking at the Texas 61 map just now, I notice towns I’ve never heard of — at some distance from San Antonio, where I know most of the surrounding burgs — including the likes of Bleiblerville, Blue, Concrete, Ding Dong, Gay Hill, North Zulch, Oxford, Snook, and Sublime. All real Texas town names, according to Michelin.

Nelles Maps Hong Kong

Posted on February 2, 2016 by admin

When you Google huuuge (three u’s), you get this.

Four u’s, this.

That came to mind as I looked out my back door earlier today to see the results of the day’s near-unremitting rain. Huuuge puddles. Maybe even huuuuge.

Nelles Maps are, or at least were in the 1990s, beautiful to behold. While in Asia during that decade, I discovered that the company, which is based in Munich, offers excellent maps of certain Asian places, such as city maps of Hong Kong and Bangkok, and larger maps of Thailand and Malaysia and Bali.

I see from looking around that Nelles still makes those maps, plus a fair number of other places in Asia, Africa and the Americas. None of Europe unless you count Madeira, and none of the United States, except for no fewer than four Hawaiian maps: the Big Island, Honolulu & Oahu, Kauai, and a state of Hawaii map. (What, no Maui?) Guess the company’s specialties are places Germans are likely to consider exotic for machen Urlaub.

Here’s a detail of the Hong Kong map I probably picked up in 1990: Victoria Harbour, flanked by Hong Kong Island to the south and Tsim Sha Tsui, often known as TST, to the north.
I suspect 1990 because the Cultural Centre in TST is marked as under construction. That would put the publication of the map in the late 1980s, since the center was completed in 1989, complete with a plaque unveiled by Charles and Diana.

A closeup of TST.

Even if I’d never been there before — and after over 20 years, it’s like that — I’d look at this map and think, how interesting. The Star Ferry Terminal. HK Space Museum. HK Museum of Art. The Mariners Club. Kowloon Mosque. Streets called Hankow, Haiphong, Hanoi, Humphrey, Cameron and of course Nathan Road.

One thing I missed in TST was the Avenue of the Stars, which is on the waterfront and celebrates the HK film industry. If you want to see a statue of Bruce Lee, apparently that’s your place. The reason I missed it was that it didn’t open until 2004. Shucks.

bản đồ thế giới

Posted on February 1, 2016 by admin

Word is there will be cold rain tomorrow. At least it won’t be snow, and at least it’s the beginning of the end of winter. Today was sunny and above freezing. So cloudless, in fact, that I was inspired to take a picture of the clear blue sky.

I don’t know if I’ve ever taken that kind of picture before. Clouds, yes. Trees in front of a clear sky, yes. But straight up azure? It was surprisingly hard to get the camera to take the shot, I suppose since the sensors don’t sense anything nearby to focus on.

One thing I did over the weekend was thumb through some of my maps. I can’t quite call it a collection, since there’s no system to it, and I haven’t been going out of my way to acquire them over the years. Mainly they’ve been useful purchases, such as in London or Berlin, and they’ve accumulated.

My Vietnamese-language world map, on the other hand, was a souvenir. I’m pretty sure I got it in Saigon. At the top it says it’s a bản đồ thế giới, except it’s all capitals. But it does feature some of the intricate diacritical marks that characterize Vietnamese.

Here’s Vietnam’s neighborhood.

And North America.

In case you need to know it, the United States is Hoa Kỳ in Vietnamese. I’m just guessing, but that seems to be a translation of “united states.” Look at the map enough, though, and you’ll see many of the place names seem to be phonetic.

Map in the Mail

Posted on September 30, 2015 by admin

Medecins Sans Frontiers wants money from me, and toward that end sent me a map of the world specially printed for them by Rand McNally. That’s a pretty good way to get my attention. It’s not quite as aesthetic as one by National Geographic or Nelles, but not bad. But you’d think that for an organization that has “without borders” in its name, national borders would be left off the map to make a point. Instead, the nations of the Earth are variously hued, as on any political map.

Fine print on the side of the map is at pains to say that the lines and colors on the map don’t mean that the organization takes a position one way or the other on any of them. It also specifically mentions Sudan and South Sudan — a “final boundary… has not been determined” — and that “a dispute exists between the Government of Argentina and the United Kingdom concerning sovereignty over the Falklands Islands (Malvinas).”

Mentioning Sudan and South Sudan, I understand, since I’m pretty sure the organization is active there. But the Falklands? Why a note about that and not, say, the West Bank or the Western Sahara or the Spratlys or just about anywhere else that’s disputed? Such spots are just about everywhere, though this map doesn’t show that some disputes are more intense than others.

Also: the map is a Gall stereographic projection. Looks like Rand McNally doesn’t mention Peters, and from what I can tell, this one doesn’t look as weirdly distorted as either Mercator or the maps I’ve seen called Peters projections. Speaking of which — here’s xkcd on maps.

Thursday Ends & Odds

Posted on September 17, 2015 by admin

And why is the idiom “odds and ends” rather than the other way around? Just idle curiosity.

A huge thunderstorm started here at about 4:15 this afternoon. It was fast-moving. I sat out on the deck starting at around 3:45, when it was partly and cloudy windy and reasonably warm. I noticed a bank of black clouds to the west and northwest, and as the minutes passed, they crept closer. By about 4, the western half of the sky was covered, like a lid being closed.

In about 15 minutes, as soon as all of the sky was covered, enormous amounts of water cut loose, to the sound of some thunder. I was inside by that time. Whatever else you can say about me, I have sense enough to come in out of the rain.

The other day I saw a flying hubcap. Rolling, actually, most of the time. It was loose on the other side of a four-lane street, recently separating from a pickup truck, just as I drove by. I’ve seen enough hubcaps on the side of roads, but never one in motion. Fortunately, it stayed well clear of my position.

The following is strictly vanity. Everyone’s vain about something. About two years ago I found a web site that would generate a color-coded personal travel map. I found it again and updated it.

Green: either lived in these places or visited so many times I’ve lost count. Very familiar.

Blue: Numerous visits covering a fair amount of the state or province, or one or two visits of strong intensity and some variety. Fairly familiar. (I changed Iowa to blue.)

Orange: Spent the night at least once, saw a relatively limited number of places. (I added Oregon.)

Pink: Passed through (on the ground) but didn’t spend the night.

White (no color): Never visited.

It’s good to have some ambition in this regard, even though making a list and checking it off is a pointless exercise. What I want to do is get rid of all the white and pink areas, but if not, I won’t fret about it (Nunavut seems particularly unlikely).

Prefecture Osaka

Posted on March 15, 2015 by admin

Twenty-five years ago this week, primed by a young man’s sense of adventure, I moved to Japan. Eventually I learned my way around, literally and figuratively, without the assistance of the Internet, since it wasn’t in common use. One of my better investments along those lines — literally getting around, that is — was a paper atlas called Prefecture Osaka.

At least, those were the roman-letter words on the cover. In fact, those were the only roman letters in the entire book. Extracting useful information sometimes took a while but — in that great eventually again — I learned my way around the book, too.

Sometimes I would stare at it, just because I enjoyed looking at it. The lines, the tints, the utterly foreign script — it’s a beautiful group of maps. This is one of the pages. As it happens, the northern part of Sumiyoshi Ward, which is where I lived. My block’s nearly in the fold, so it isn’t displayed here. But a lot of familiar places are.

The whole-page scan doesn’t really do it justice, though. Even the close-up doesn’t, but imagine a crisp paper version of this image, because digital will never capture the aesthetics of paper.

The bright yellow rectangle is the JR Nagai station (these tracks). The white rectangle is the Nagai subway station on the Midosuji Line. I rarely used JR, but I went to the Nagai subway station just about every day. Urban Japan, as our urban planners say, has high walkability.

The ward was further divided, as marked by different tints on the map. My area was called Nagai-Nishi: West Nagai. That was further subdivided — twice. The smallest divisions are the blocks marked by the small blue numbers. The green space on this map is green space: Nagai Park (Nagai Koen, 長居公園 ). Literally, Long Park.

Arcane Sunday Bits

Posted on January 19, 2014 by admin

More snow on Saturday, which probably removes the risk that we might see patches of ground again before sometime in March. More shoveling last night, though this time Lilly helped. That was the price of borrowing the car today.

Tenchi Meisatsu (Samurai Astronomer) was an interesting movie. As I was watching it yesterday, it occurred to me that I knew little about the pre-Meiji Japanese calendar, except that it had been borrowed from the Chinese, and tossed out in favor of the Gregorian calendar. Tenchi Meisatsu (2012) is the story of Yasui Santetsu, the first official astronomer of the Tokugawa shogunate, and his dramatized efforts to reform the Japanese calendar in the 17th century.

As the reviewer at the imbd points out, that’s an unusual subject for a movie, yet it’s effective. As a Japan Times reviewer points out, “it’s probably the best film about calendar making you’ll ever see.” So far, that’s true. I don’t expect to see an action thriller about Pope Gregory any time soon, and poor old Sosigenes didn’t even rate a mention in the HBO series Rome that I recall, though he seems to have been a character in the 1963 movie Cleopatra.

Another arcane matter: It’s never occurred to me to have a favorite map projection, but I know enough to find this funny. I’m fond of most any map, except for grossly inaccurate tourist maps. That is, the sort that have a few vague lines of actual geography, but which mostly sport drawings of famous places or random fun-time activities. They aren’t real maps anyway.

These are some interesting maps. Especially this one.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Maps