Last week, during the Falcons game, they showed an overhead view of the nearby Olympic plaza. I realized that I'd never visited an Olympic site before and that I'd really like to. It would be cool to see the infrastructure and to see what's being commemorated. What would be the easiest place to do that?
I told the FP Gal and we tried to figure out which site would be closest to us. I thought it might be Calgary. She mentioned Lake Placid. I said that Salt Lake City would probably be in the mix. I tried to Google it but Google was having problems so I put it on a mental shelf and moved on.
The next day I looked up the results. Per Google, from my home location:
Lake Placid, NY is 1250 miles away.
Salt Lake City, UT is 1238 miles away.
Calgary, up in Canada, is 1201 miles away.
That's pretty amazing. Three sites, chosen for their Olympic pasts, are almost equidistant from us. Less than a 5% difference between the extremes. Pretty crazy.
Only after figuring this out did I realize that I should look into the distance to Atlanta, the site that kicked off the whole idea. According to Google, it's only 1085 miles away. I had no idea that Atlanta was closer to us than Salt Lake City. To my mind, it's an east coast place and we live on the edge of the Great Plains. We should be closer to a mountain city, but obviously that's not true. US geography is tricky.
But wait! There is another site that I'd forgotten about! Way back in 1904, one of the crazier Olympic games was held in St. Louis, MO, only 532 miles away. The events were part of a five month exhibition. Very few other countries sent athletes and the US cleaned up in the (newly introduced) medal count. This Smithsonian article does a good job of capturing the weirdness of the whole shebang.
Would a trip to visit Olympic sites be worthwhile? I'm not really sure. A few of the buildings from the 1904 games are still in use at Washington University. A couple of years ago, an initiative sprung up in St. Louis to commemorate their Olympic history. Their website is here. It looks like a dedicated fan could spend some time there and find some good stuff.
My original question was where the easiest past Olympic site would be to visit. After quickly coming up with three wrong answers, I seem to have stumbled upon a right one. If I want to check out a former Olympic area, I should go to St. Louis.
I told the FP Gal and we tried to figure out which site would be closest to us. I thought it might be Calgary. She mentioned Lake Placid. I said that Salt Lake City would probably be in the mix. I tried to Google it but Google was having problems so I put it on a mental shelf and moved on.
The next day I looked up the results. Per Google, from my home location:
Lake Placid, NY is 1250 miles away.
Salt Lake City, UT is 1238 miles away.
Calgary, up in Canada, is 1201 miles away.
That's pretty amazing. Three sites, chosen for their Olympic pasts, are almost equidistant from us. Less than a 5% difference between the extremes. Pretty crazy.
Only after figuring this out did I realize that I should look into the distance to Atlanta, the site that kicked off the whole idea. According to Google, it's only 1085 miles away. I had no idea that Atlanta was closer to us than Salt Lake City. To my mind, it's an east coast place and we live on the edge of the Great Plains. We should be closer to a mountain city, but obviously that's not true. US geography is tricky.
But wait! There is another site that I'd forgotten about! Way back in 1904, one of the crazier Olympic games was held in St. Louis, MO, only 532 miles away. The events were part of a five month exhibition. Very few other countries sent athletes and the US cleaned up in the (newly introduced) medal count. This Smithsonian article does a good job of capturing the weirdness of the whole shebang.
Would a trip to visit Olympic sites be worthwhile? I'm not really sure. A few of the buildings from the 1904 games are still in use at Washington University. A couple of years ago, an initiative sprung up in St. Louis to commemorate their Olympic history. Their website is here. It looks like a dedicated fan could spend some time there and find some good stuff.
My original question was where the easiest past Olympic site would be to visit. After quickly coming up with three wrong answers, I seem to have stumbled upon a right one. If I want to check out a former Olympic area, I should go to St. Louis.
