Are we looking for a town here?

nope. a desert.
-----Added 18/11/2008 at 08 : 28 : 30-----
...you don't need to make this segment the only one nobody guessed! Put together the words we know apply here and you'll find it.

Desert, Maine?

Tul,
Even though I suspect you still have no idea that you sort of guessed where I am, I think it's fair to give it to you since, yes, I'm in the Desert of Maine.

I was driving from Quebec across Northern Maine, mostly on private logging roads, and then headed south along the coast. From a high vantage point overlooking the river valley, I remember seeing the Kennebeck River covered in floating logs for many miles as far as I could see...this was years ago when logging on the river was still going on. As I went further south, I saw a sign for "Desert of Maine" so I had to go see. It pretty much looked like a large sandbox in the woods. But here's the official story:

Desert of Maine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Desert of Maine is a 40-acre (160,000 m2) tract of exposed glacial silt (a sand-like substance, but not actually sand) in pine forest near Freeport, Maine.

It originated when the Tuttle family farmed the site from 1797. Failure to rotate crops, combined with land clearance and overgrazing, led to soil erosion, exposing a dune of sand-like glacial silt. The initial exposed small patch of sand gradually spread and overtook the entire farm. The Tuttles abandoned the land in the 1919s when it was purchased for $300 by Henry Goldrup, who converted it to a tourist attraction in 1925.

The site is preserved as a natural curiosity, hosting a gift shop and a farming and sand museum.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...ertofmaine.jpg

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...rtofmaine2.jpg

Yeah, never heard of it. But that's part of what i like about this game. Always learning something new about the rest of the world.

Alright, go!

Where be I?

b u n WH?

WH yes.

SH?

city?

U.S.?

WH, NH, used to be a city, Not in the US.

Chichen Itza?

God I hate that place, so NO.

canadia?

Nope, not Canadian.

Are you in Mexico?



Tul, do you hate Chichen Itza or the tourist related exploitation of that place? I'm curious since to me it seems like such a significant, fantastic place if you could remove the tourist related influences.

No but you're getting warmer



Yes, it's the tourists and the problems they bring. It use to be such a cool place. I used to make yearly, sometime twice yearly treks to Chichen. It started getting bad about 10 years ago. Then when it made one of the "new seven wonders" list, well now it's just a waste of time, IMO. There's no way to see most of it. A lot of it's roped off now. What you can see is blocked by tourist who stand in front of things while they decide weighty topics such as whether or not to do the snorkel tour tomorrow or whether or not to let little Megan get her hair braided this trip. Apparently making these decisions any where other then a doorway to a jaguar's throne simply wouldn't make any sense.

The vendors nearly out number the tourists, which is really saying something. Vendors line every walk way to every structure. I went one year for summer solstice and came away thinking "Wow! Never doing that again. The number of people was completely insane and the vendors were everywhere." Now it's like that everyday. The only change I've noticed in the last year or so is the vendors used to say "Come, see, cheaper then Wal-Mart, cheaper then Wal-Mart. " Now they've replaced Wal-Mart with Target for some unknown reason.

Want to see a cool Mayan ruin go somewhere like Uxmal.

south america?

No, too far south.

guatemala?

No, think island, think east.

cuber?

Close, but no.

Somewhere in the Cayman Islands?

No, but I'm thinking of putting some cash there. Either that or under my mattress.

Again, right area wrong island.

Jamaica?

Yep.

rose hall?

Negril Beach?

Nice places, least Negril Beach is for sure. I assume Rose Hall must be too. But I'm not in either. See post #3311 for the clue.

port royal?

Yes, yes I am a pirate.
400+ years too late.
Now the cannons don't thunder
There's nothing to plunder
We're all over 40 victims of fate
Arriving too late.

But buy me mate a slog of grog
And a busty lass
With a shiny piece o'eight
Yo Ho Ho, yer up me mate.

ok, find me...

WH?

yup...

NH?

yup...

US?

nope...

North America?

norte americano...

Mexico?

yup...

Town?

coastal town?

more like a "coastal area..."

this is going to be soo easy...

West coast?

nope...

Mayan Rivera?

not really...

Island?

nope...

Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve?

nope...

Are you looking for a town?

Ciudad del Carmen?

...bring your clubs and hit some balls at the Club de Golf Playa Palmas del Carmen

not ciudad del carmen...

área costera...

Laguna de Tamiahua?

nope...

Are you in the Yucatan?

Are you in the Chicxulub asteroid impact crater?

no, i'm on the coast...

Gulf coast?

Are you in Coatzacoalcos?


...too bad if you're not - Salma Hayek was born there and she's hot!

gulf coast, just north of belize city...

Well, Belize City is on the Caribbean side, not on the Gulf Coast. Anything just north of Belize City and in Mexico would be on the Yucatan peninsula. Guess I'm kind of lost.

Chetumal Bay?

sorry, thought it was gulf...

it's on the peninsula, but i guess it's "on" the caribbean...

I'm grasping for tacos here since I have no idea. Hunting around on a map, I found this place with sort of the word "coast" in it:

are you at Costa Maya?

Costa Maya is a small tourist region in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico, located between Cancún and Belize. The area is generally undeveloped but has been growing quickly and rapidly after construction of a large pier to accommodate cruise ships. The Costa Maya includes two small villages -- Majahual and Xcalak.

Costa Maya is the closest port of access to many of the lesser known Mayan ruins in the Yucatan including Chacchoben and Kohunlich. These sites are substantially less excavated than the better known pyramids near Cancún.

Punta Allen?

nick -

Map of Mexico's Costa Maya - Playa Real Playa del Carmen Real Estate

you got it, buddy...

Gez, damn near in my own back yard and I missed it.

Ok Nick NH?

Awww, unc...you made my magic twanger tingle by calling me "buddy" ...maybe I'm just in a sensitive mood ;) But I sure stepped in the proverbial geographic pile of shit with that guess. But a cheap win is still a win.


OK, where in the world am I this time?
-----Added 20/11/2008 at 10 : 06 : 38-----
hey no fair, Tul. You guessed where I am before I even knew where I am!!!! How'd you do that!? Mayan Magic, I presume.

But yes, NH.

WH?

yes WH

North America?

yep, NA

US?

yes US

East of that river?

yep, to the right of that old man river

btw, I love Paul Robeson. I'm gonna throw his album on my turntable tonight.



...since I'm happily rolling along I'll throw another free clue out there:

I'm north of the Shenandoah

in a state that touches an ocean?

nope

By the way, I'm hoping you find the establishment I'm in which is near a small town nearby here.

North of Shenandoah Nat. Park?

yep, definitely north of the park

that big-ass hamburger place in western pennsylvania?

I'm gonna have to look that one up, unc, since I'm not sure what/where that is. But nope, not there.

Head east some since you're in the right state.

Even though where I am is not an eating establishment, they do have some pretty decent food in their large cafeteria area. But it is a commercial establishment that is generally quite well known, and there are several of them around the country in addition to this one here....though this is the largest and one of the more interesting ones.

six flags?

by the way, this is that hamburger place:

http://www.dennysbeerbarrelpub.com/

nope...too far east.

This place is more about the great outdoors, though they don't sell doors.

within 50 miles of philadelphia?

Are you in a park?

unc, this place is about 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia. I wish that burger place was not ~3+ hrs from here, I'd go.

Tul, I'm not in a park but this establishment is surrounded by a large parking lot.

This place is a commercial business enterprise....as I said above, it's about the great outdoors. And strangely enough, unc's suggestion about that hamburger place has an eerily familiar ring to it at this place.

I just don't know jack about this area. But I keep getting images of Dan Aykroyd, John Candy in my head for some reason.

gander mountain?

don't know of too many places around shamokin...

how about commercial places around Hamburg PA? ...great outdoors kind of places? in a large building.

You're not in the Cabela's in Hamburg are you?

damn right I am, Tul. Good going, you're up next. That hamburg/er connection by unc had me wondering how to say it.

As of now, this is the largest Cabelas in the world, just over 250,000 square feet of every kind of outdoor item you can imagine. Pretty cool place IMO...though I more often support and actually buy more stuff from my locally owned "small business" sports outfitter since the "BAD SIDE" of these huge conglomerate stores is the stress they put on established mom & pop businesses like my perennial hated-store Walmart.

On the plus side, they always support and have programs going on related to wildlife and habitat conservation.

But we really like spending a couple hours at this Cabelas every couple months or so. I take my kids here just to walk around, target shoot and "window" shop...though we almost always buy something we "need", like a crossbow or 4 ft. long blowgun, a new fly fishing outfit, 50 caliber practice slugs...my kid came running up to me with a box of real live .50 caliber bullets and thought I'd get them for him since they looked so cool...this is my kid who got a two day suspension from school last year for bringing "explosives" to school, which in this case were just those little tissue paper poppers you throw on the ground and they pop, but the zero tolerance policy leaves no room for interpretation. He wasn't dumb enough to get caught, but somebody else who got one of the poppers and got caught rated him out...they're still friends.

Cabela's has a distinctive look to their retail operations, a look which turns them into tourist attractions as well as retail stores. The stores are more like cavernous showrooms, bringing the outdoors inside. They feature museum-quality displays of taxidermied wildlife, large aquariums, indoor mountains, and archery ranges. The success of the format is illustrated by the company's showcase store in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, with more than 250,000 square feet (23,000 m2) of floor space.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2.../05cabelas.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...6cabelas-1.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...I/16safari.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...I/17safari.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...I/22safari.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2.../27cabelas.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2.../32cabelas.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2.../33cabelas.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...20I/43deer.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2.../66cabelas.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...amedisplay.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...inggallery.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2.../Cabelas-1.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...I/Cabella1.jpg

EH?

WH

NH?

Yep, NH.