Detour

Diversions

   The pandemic has kept us inside and the political issues are depressing so I am offering here an escape for those looking for something to do on this cold and snowy day. Travelling is ruled out, but travelling virtually is not. I am sure you are a user of Google Maps and perhaps even Google Earth or Google Street View. The latter allows people to see where your house is, just as googling lets them find out more about you. The suggestion here is that you use Google Street View to do some global exploration - virtually.

   If you are the timid type, you might want to stay close to home, or perhaps your spouse is just yearning to do some shopping, which like travelling is generally disallowed.  If so, you can go to Google Maps and type in "Kingsmill's Department Store." Not only will you see Dundas Street when it looked a lot better, you can actually go into Kingsmill's and have a look around when stores looked a lot better. The two grabbed images below are not good examples and you should have a virtual look, since Kingsmill's closed a while back.

Dundas Street

Kingsmill's

  

   The more adventurous of you probably want to venture farther and you can use Google Street View to do so -well not really Google Street View, but Random Street View, which uses Google Street View to take you on a global tour. It would be rather tedious to type in the names of a street in, say, Vienna or a path in Botswana, even if you knew them, and do so over and over for other locations. Random Street View does the work for you. It selects locations around the world and presents them randomly. If you prefer to stay in-country, you can select 'Canada' and travel the Alaska Highway, or just go down Melville Street in Wellington, Ontario on a fall day. Here are two examples from different areas of the globe.

Path in Slovenia

Open Road in Botswana

 

   If you are both adventurous and competitive, viewing random road shots from around the earth may not be enough, particularly if the nude sunbather accidentally caught in the shot was scrubbed from the picture by the folks at Google. For you, there is GEOGUESSR. It is a game invented by some Swedish IT guys back in the very bad winter of 2013, which was kind of like being in a pandemic in Ontario now.  The object is to guess the geographical location and there are various competitive options.  If you are adventurous and competitive, but also miserly, you will have to stick with Random Street View which is free. GeoGuessr started out that way, but eventually Google started charging them for the use of the data and images. 

Sources:
   While doing this, I discovered that there is still a Kingsmill's website, but it has now disappeared.  Apart from using Google Maps, you can also view some photos of Kingsmill's in Jennifer Grainger's, London Free Press: From the Vault. 
    Like me, you have probably used Google Street View to see where an old girl friend lives, or to see how well or poorly a class mate has done, but were unaware of Random Street View. I was as well, but apparently the pandemic has resulted in an increase in users  which is reported on here: "The Pandemic-Induced Popularity of Google Street View," by Sophie Haigney, The New Yorker, Feb. 6, 2021 (misers beware, it may be behind a firewall, where even Google can't go.)
   There are Wikipedia entries for all the things discussed. 

The Bonus:

I have run out of time, but if the above is of interest, you may want to check out MapCrunch. I didn't have time.

We are doing what we can doing these hard times to support local restaurants, The gestures are not heroic ones, they typically just involve ordering take-out food. We did so again recently and I thought the well-done lettering on the take-out bag should be recognized and it is from an establishment still on Dundas Street, where Kingsmill's used to be. The food was good as well and there was plenty of it.

For those of you still reeling over my recent piece about Druthers and the dubious nature of most news stories, visit this Associated Press website to find out what really didn't happen this week: Not Real News.