Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks (41 page)

107
even contemplating suicide:
Jo Piazza, “Audiences Experience
Avatar
Blues,” CNN, January 11, 2010.

108
Treasure Island:
Lloyd Osbourne,
An Intimate Portrait of R.L.S.
(New York: Scribner’s, 1924),
p. 41
.

108
“I am told”:
Robert Louis Stevenson, “My First Book,”
McClure’s
no. 3 (September 1894), p. 283.

108
“I don’t know”:
Peter and Wendy
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1911/1991),
p. 73
.

110
Delvoye is also the artist:
Katharine Harmon,
You Are Here; Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Architectural Press, 2003),
p. 186
.

112
gay map buffs:
Mike Parker,
Map Addict
(London: Collins, 2009),
p. 258
.

114
Tolkien never read
Islandia:
According to a letter he wrote to a reader in 1957. Douglas A. Anderson,
Tales Before Tolkien
(New York: Del Rey, 2003), p. 372.

115
Narnia was itself named:
Walter Hooper and Roger Lancelyn Green,
C. S. Lewis: A Biography
(New York: HarperCollins, 2002), p. 306.

115
she had some cartographic training:
“Pauline Baynes,” obituary,
The Daily Telegraph,
Aug. 8, 2008.

115
he doodled the map first:
David and Lee Eddings,
The Rivan Codex
(New York: Del Rey, 1998),
p. 10
.

117
Baldwin Street in Dunedin:
Simon Warren,
100
Greatest Cycling Climbs
(London: Frances Lincoln, 2010),
p. 10
.

117
“The achievement of”:
The Romance of the Commonplace
(San Francisco: Paul Elder and Morgan Shepherd, 1902),
p. 91
.

120
“Nothing seems crasser”:
Robert Harbison,
Eccentric Spaces
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977/2000),
p. 125
.

CHAPTER 7: RECKONING

133
“Rote memorization must be emphasized”:
“National Geography Bee?,”
FOCUS on Geography
38, no. 2 (Summer 1988),
pp. 33
–36.

135
the old record had been shattered:
David Brooks, “Mount Washington Gust Record Gone with the Wind,”
Nashua Telegraph,
Jan. 27, 2010.

136
the second best design:
“The Great British Design Quest,”
The Culture Show,
BBC Two, Mar. 2, 2006.

136
“removing the smile”:
Mark Easton, “Map of the Week: London without the Thames,” BBC News, Sept. 16, 2009.

136
“Can’t believe that the Thames disappeared”:
@MayorOf London, Twitter status, Sept. 17, 2009.

136
The Swedish crown jewels:
Peter Barber and Christopher Board,
Tales from the Map Room: Fact and Fiction About Maps and Their Makers
(London: BBC Books, 1993),
p. 74
.

138
an elaborate farm system:
Ben Paynter, “Why Are Indian Kids So Good at Spelling?,” Slate, June 2, 2010,
www.slate.com/id/2255622
.

139
Deborah Tannen says:
Missy Globerman, “Linguist and Author Lectures on Differences in Men’s and Women’s Conversational Styles,”
Cornell Chronicle,
Jul. 10, 1997.

140
John and Ashley Sims:
Mike Parker,
Map Addict
(London: Collins, 2009),
p. 254
.

CHAPTER 8: MEANDER

148
without ever leaving their monasteries:
James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow, Jr., eds.,
Maps: Finding Our Place in the World
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007),
p. 35
.

149
international cleanup efforts:
Gopal Sharma, “Everest ‘Death Zone’ Set for a Spring Clean Up,” Reuters, Apr. 19, 2010.

151
hovered around 20 percent:
Lornet Turnbull, “Many in U.S. to Need Passport,”
The Seattle Times,
Apr. 6, 2005.

152
“I’ve worked all my life”:
Katie Couric, “Exclusive: Palin on Foreign Policy,”
CBS Evening News,
Sept. 25, 2008.

155
“My God!” he remembered marveling:
Jack Longacre, “The Birth of the Highpointers Club,”
Apex to Zenith
(newsletter) 14 (3rd quarter 1991),
p. 9
.

156
least accessible U.S. high point:
Helen O’Neill, “Why Molehill Is Nation’s Most Challenging Mountain,”
Los Angeles Times,
July 2, 2000.

156
“I would lose”:
Julie Jargon, “A Fan Hits a Roadblock on a Drive to See Every Starbucks,”
The Wall Street Journal,
May 23, 2009.

157
forty-five Detroit-area McDonald’s:
Susan Sheehan and Howard Means,
The Banana Sculptor, the Purple Lady, and the All-Night Swimmer
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002),
p. 104
.

157
A documentary:
Starbucking,
directed by Bill Tangeman, Heretic Films, 2005.

159
He’s been mugged:
These calamities are drawn from a list Veley compiled of his worst travel experiences. John Flinn, “I’ve Been Everywhere, Man,”
San Francisco Chronicle,
Sept. 25, 2005.

161
the island of Ferdinandea:
Richard Owen, “Italy Stakes Early Claim to Submerged Island,”
The Times,
Nov. 27, 2002.

162
a man comfortable with the amenities:
A phrase I’ve stolen from the great Scottish cartoonist Eddie Campbell.

164
“It was like finishing”:
Rolf Potts, “Mister Universe,”
The New York Times,
Nov. 16, 2008.

165
“I want to be”:
Roger Rowlett, “An Interview with Club Founder Jack Longacre,”
Apex to Zenith
(newsletter) 57 (2nd quarter 2002),
p. 10
.

CHAPTER 9: TRANSIT

166
“There are map people”:
John Steinbeck,
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
(London: Penguin 1962/1997),
p. 55
.

168
a cross-country convoy:
Numerical data about this grueling expedition was drawn from William Greany, “Principal Facts Concerning the First Transcontinental Army Motor Transport Expedition, Washington to San Francisco, July 7 to September 6, 1919,” Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum,
www.eisenhower.archives.gov/research/digital_documents/1919Convoy/New%20PDFs/Principal%20facts.pdf
.

169
the size of the state of Delaware:
U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, 1961,
www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/50size.cfm
.

170
the traffic light in Syracuse’s:
“Irish in Syracuse Keep Green on Top, Even on Stop Light,”
The New York Times,
Apr. 7, 1976.

170
the nation’s highest-numbered road:
This is a much-contested distinction, confused by the fact that some areas (like my former home state of Utah) add two zeroes to their numbered streets, calling a road something like “800 South” when it’s effectively 8th South. 1010th Street in rural Wisconsin is the highest number so far discovered by the obsessives on the misc.transport.road newsgroup.

170
US-321 through Elizabethton:
According to the misc.transport.road FAQ, this is the only U.S. highway that switches from north–south to south–north signposting, though nearly thirty others switch from north–south to east–west at some point.

170
The numbering was out of order:
Shuster insisted that the name I-99 would be more “catchy.” Sean D. Hamill, “Road Stirs Up Debate, Even on Its Name,”
The New York Times,
Dec. 27, 2008.

171
“Guerrilla Public Service”:
Craig Stephens, “Richard Ankrom’s Freeway Art,”
L.A. Weekly,
Dec. 30, 2009.

173
fabled wonders of roadgeek America:
Both superlatives drawn, again, from the FAQ periodically posted to misc.transport.road.

174
the Daleks from
Doctor Who
:
“Daleks Get Stamp of Approval,” BBC News, Feb. 5, 1999.

174
millions every year:
“From One Revolution to Another,” Ordnance Survey,
www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/about-us/our-history/index.html
.

174
“Coming from a country”:
Notes from a Small Island
(New York: William Morrow, 1995),
p. 94
.

175
Weimar-era maps:
Arthur Jay Klinghoffer,
The Power of Projections: How Maps Reflect Global Politics and History
(Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2006),
p. 90
.

175
as he and his new bride:
Douglas A. Yorke and John Margolies,
Hitting the Road: The Art of the American Road Map
(San Francisco: Chronicle, 1996),
p. 17
.

176
a jaw-droppingly bold:
Ibid.,
p. 40
.

176
Eight billion:
Ibid.,
p. 6
.

184
“There is a game”:
“The Purloined Letter,”
Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales
(New York: Library of America, 1984), p. 694.

CHAPTER 10: OVEREDGE

187
Neal Lane announced:
“On the President’s Announcement on the Global Positioning System,” White House Office of Science and Technology Policy press release, May 1, 2000.

188
“Now that SA”:
“The Great American GPS Stash Hunt!,” sci.geo.satellite-nav Usenet newsgroup, May 3, 2000. The lightning-quick spread of geocaching in its first few weeks can be read firsthand in the archives of this now mostly defunct newsgroup.

191
“the biggest hobby in the world”:
Nicole Tsong, “Geocachers to Descend on Seattle This Weekend in Search of the ‘Triad,’”
The Seattle Times,
July 1, 2010.

193
“Look at this list”:
Mia Farrow enthused about geocaching to
Time Out New York
in November 2006, while Ryan Phillippe brought it up on George Lopez’s talk show in May 2010. Wil Wheaton and Rikki Rock-ett used to geocache as GroundskeeperWillie (awesome handle!) and PoisonDrummer (not-so-awesome handle), respectively, though neither has logged a find in years.