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[wakingdream]

St Catharines, Ontario

[flewthecoop]

Scituate, Massachusetts, USA

[mmbcross]

Everglades City, Florida

A trading post was opened in 1892, and gained a post office, called "Everglade", in 1895. Northern tourists began coming to Everglade by yacht in the winter to hunt and fish. The simple accommodations used eventually grew into the Rod and Gun Club, visited by United States Presidents and other notables.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Everglades City and its adjoining island, Chokoloskee, were centers of marijuana smuggling. The dense mangroves that surrounded the area and its remote location provided a perfect environment for marijuana drug smugglers to drop their bales. The cargo was delivered from boats and airplanes to be picked up by drug dealers on the ground and distributed throughout the United States. It also helped that there was an isolated airstrip available to the drug dealers. Many of the local residents became involved in these operations.

2000 census records a population of 479.

[flewthecoop]

Ypsilanti. Michigan

[wakingdream]

Iran

[jacquesl]

Nukus, Uzbekistan

Nukus is a city in western Uzbekistan, the capital of the Karakalpakistan Autonomous Republic, located in the delta of the Amu Darya River about 1255 km west of Tashkent, and about 230 km south of Muynaq and the former shoreline of the Aral Sea. An increase in upstream irrigation needs reduced the downstream flow of the Amu Darya, contributing to the shrinking of the Aral and the disappearance of its plentiful fish stocks. Nukus is a center for the growing and processing of cotton and rice. The local climate has changed with the disappearance of the sea, and Nukus now experiences an average of ten dust and sand storms a year. The 1989 census indicated that Nukus was the fastest growing city in Uzbekistan as a consequence of the deteriorating environmental conditions in the surrounding countryside. Nukus also has a large museum with an art collection from the Russian avant-garde, a bold group of artists who ushered in modernism at the beginning of the 20th century. Many of those artists fell victim to the purges of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in the early 1930's, but the late director of the Nukus Museum collected their work and brought it to Nukus. Nukus became a city in 1932 and succeeded Turtkul as the capital of Karakalpakistan in 1939.

[mmbcross]

Anna Maria, Florida

In 1892 George Emerson Bean became the first permanent resident on the Island and homesteaded much of what is now the City of Anna Maria.

For years the only way to the Island was by boat. It was not until 1921 that Anna Maria was physically connected to the mainland by a wooden bridge.

Today the entire city is a bird sanctuary.

Average Temperature: 80.7 degrees
Average Rainfall: 37.6 inches
Average Snowfall: 0 inches

[flewthecoop]

Lubec (Maine, USA)

[mmbcross]

Anclote, Florida

In 1867 two men with their families and livestock left their plantations near Ocala and plodded down the primitive road to the north bank of the Anclote River, about three miles west of Tarpon Springs. They were the brothers Frederick and Ben Franklin Meyer; each of the wives was named Sarah. They built log cabins, put in their first crops, and planted seeds of the oranges they had brought with them. Before long, however, both brothers died of yellow fever.

The widows and their half-grown children persevered in country so wild that they could hear wolves howl at night—and they never forgot it.

Although Ben Franklin Meyer had fought for the Confederacy, his widow received a small pension from the United States government because as a youth he had fought in the Mexican War. Although Mrs. Meyer had brought her sheets of piano music from Ocala, she was to be an old lady before she had a chance to play a piano in her new home.

Gradually a settlement grew up around the Meyer cabins and was called Anclote—centered on today's Wacassassa, Seminole, and Osceola Streets. Traders, fishermen, and Key West spongers, many of them British, liked the friendly little homes and dropped in whenever they could. Soon there was a school, a ferry, a post office, and a general store.

Several well-to-do English families came to Anclote as part of a colonization scheme; they planned to drain the marshes and grow sugar cane. The ditches they dug are still there, but the cane was not successful.

Today the little community of Anclote has an abandoned chemical company on one side and an electric power plant on the other, but it remains tranquil and modestly residential.

[introducinlyric]

Lake Boga (Victoria,Australia)

Lake Boga, northernmost waterway in a chain of lakes between Kerang and Swan Hill in the state’s north, enjoyed its five years of fame in World War II when it was the base for the No 1 Flying Boat Repair Depot.

Today the Catalina A24-30 and the Communications Bunker mark the site of the original base while the nearby museum houses a variety of flying boats that have landed on the lake over the years. A section has been reserved for the craft that saw air service during the war.

For those who have never felt the thrill of taking off or landing on water, the museum’s flight simulator and theatre shares the experience with visitors

[flewthecoop]

Allagash (Maine, USA)

[mmbcross]

Alva, Florida

Alva is the oldest settlement in Lee County. It has a unique country flavor that is rapidly becoming hard to find in Florida. From the magnificent sunsets over the Caloosahatchee River to the majestic oaks draping their moss-laden limbs over the center of the village near the banks of the river, this is Alva.

[jacquesl]

Asbestos, Quebec, canada!

The city of Asbestos is situated in the Eastern Townships of Québec at the centre of a triangle formed by the cities of Quebec, Sherbrooke and Montreal. Asbestos wants to change its name. Asbestos as a town name has become politically dicey, embarrassing, toxic, but chiefly it's a lousy, persistent, economic burden.
Asbestos is a fibrous mineral such as chrysotile or actinolite easily made into long flexible strands formerly used where incombustible, nonconducting, or chemically resistant material was needed, until science discovered asbestos causes cancer in persons exposed to it over long periods of time.

Asbestos has been mined from the gigantic Jeffrey pit for more than 100 years. One of a handful of substances conclusively proven to be a human carcinogen, asbestos causes cancer, big time. Actinolite is a rare form of asbestos whose needle-like fibers make it a potent lung invasive and carcinogen. Other forms of asbestos in the amphobile group are considered especially dangerous because the fibers are hard for the lungs to expel. The amphobile family of asbestos is also more likely to become airborne than the chrysotile asbestos. Asbestos becomes a health hazard when it becomes lodged in the lungs. The major health risks linked to asbestos are asbestosis, a scarring of the lungs; meso-thelioma, a cancer of the lung and chest linings; other lung cancers and nonmalignant lung and pleural disorders. Does science feel this? Think this? Science KNOWS this! Want to read medical proof of the toxic potency of asbestos? Begin at this website for Hazards magazine. http://www.hazards.org/asbestos/

But here for the questing mind to contemplate is a picture of a cancerous lung.

In this pleural mesothelioma, the dense white encircling malignant tumour mass arises, as its name implies, from the visceral pleura. These are big bulky tumours that can fill the chest cavity.

Now the citizens of Asbestos, Quebec, wish to change the name of their fair hamlet. The word asbestos has become tainted in the public mind with nasty things like tumours and death. Awww! One local Quebec official says it’s all because nitpicky Americans have a phobia about asbestos. Not quite, mon vieux. The word phobia implies an irrational and unfounded fear of something. Fear of asbestos is about as rational and smart as a human being might get. So you can dump the phobia palaver. The danger is real, monsieur.

[flewthecoop]

Inlet (New York, USA)

A small town in the Adirondack Mountains on Fourth Lake.

[introducinlyric]

Umina Beach (New South Wales, Australia)

On the Central Coast region of NSW, just a drive of an hour or so north of Sydney, Umina is on the shores of Broken Bay at the confluence of the major waterways of Pittwater, the Hawkesbury River and Brisbane Waters. Needless to say, fishing and generally mucking about in boats are ways of life in these parts.

Umina is also at the eastern edge of the Brisbane Waters National Park which conserves 12,000ha of rugged sandstone country - a great place to see wildflowers and Aboriginal rock carvings and to do some birdwatching and fauna spotting as you negotiate the rugged bushwalking tracks.

A short drive north takes you into the big commercial centre of Gosford, the heart of the Central Coast. Gosford has been regarded as a Sydney playground since 1889 when the Sydney to Newcastle rail line was completed. The population is already above 100,000 and rising.

[introducinlyric]

Alexandra Headland (Queensland, Australia)

Alexandra Headland is sandwiched between its bigger Sunshine Coast neighbours - Maroochydore and Mooloolaba. However it retains an identity of its own, with a sense of community and a relaxed lifestyle.

Affectionately known by the locals as "Alex", it is a popular surfing destination with a patrolled surf beach. The bluff at the Headland itself offers extensive beach views with Mudjimba Island, the Maroochy River and Mount Coolum in the background.

Just over the other side of the bluff lies Mooloolaba where the beach was voted Queensland's Cleanest in 2002. Along the Esplanade you will find a wide variety of cafes and restaurants. Not far away is the Wharf where there are many specialty shops and restaurants. Here also is UnderWater World, an oceanarium with an underwater viewing tunnel for seeing an incredible variety of marine creatures up close.

[flewthecoop]

Ogunquit, Maine

[introducinlyric]

Eidsvold (Queensland,Australia)

The incongruity of finding a town with a Norwegian name in the Burnett River country of central Queensland is explained by migration.

The area was first settled in 1848 by the Scottish Archer brothers, Charles and Thomas, who migrated to Australia from Norway, to where their parents had moved in 1825.

Eidsvold’s halcyon days followed the discovery of gold in 1887 and the region kept producing ore for more than 60 years before the precious stuff ran out.

Today, the town the Archer brothers named for their parent’s adopted homeland is the commercial centre for prime beef producers.

The Burnett Highway town’s features include the Eidsvold Historical Complex, with its railway siding complete with rolling stock and Knockbreak Homestead, a timber slab cottage built in the 1850s.

The complex also embraces the Duncan and Shultz collection of bottles, pioneering tools and memorabillia, and the George Schafer collection of rocks, gems and bric-a-brac.

The nearby Waruma Dam is a playground for swimmers, sailors and water-skiers.

[introducinlyric]

Atherton (Tropical North Queensland, Australia)

The Atherton Tableland, which guards the western front of the rainforest-covered hinterland of Cairns, is rightly regarded as one of Australia’s natural wonders. Superb rainforest, volcanic crater lakes and magnificent waterfalls which make this area are just some of the features of the area, most of which are protected within national parks.

This, in combination with the rich pastoral plateau, offers the traveller a singular corner of Australia where breathtaking contrast is the watchword. This is country into which you should never venture without first checking your camera's batteries.

Set in the heart of one of the oldest land masses in Australia, the Tableland and its 'capital', the town of Atherton, take their names from John Atherton, one of the area's early white pioneers, prospectors and pastoralists.

Much of the region’s fascinating past is preserved in a mineral and rock museum, complete with exotic cave, in Atherton's main street, and in the old Post Office Gallery. The links to Chinese settlement are maintained in the restored Joss House.

A short drive to Halloran’s Hill Lookout provides a panoramic view embracing the Seven Sisters - as the local volcanic cinder cones are known - and the edge of the extraordinary lava flow which features the unique lava tubes in its drift north across the landscape.

The town of Atherton is central to many of the area's attractions, making an excellent base for a few days of relaxed exploration.

[flewthecoop]

Norway ( Maine, USA)