Weekly Chris Reynolds 'Where am I?' quiz

By Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
11:04 AM PST, January 04, 2008

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The results of the first Where Am I photo quiz are in, and it's time to bow deeply in the direction of Eve Zimmerle of Arcadia.

She spotted the San Diego Zoo's aerial Skyfari cars. She knew or deduced that "Stumptown" is a nickname for Portland. She spotted the Santa Barbara train station. Her score was 18 of a possible 36. (We're tough graders here on Spring Street.) But we should note that Zimmerle works for NASA in the San Gabriel Valley. So all you losers can comfort yourselves with the thought that maybe she had access to spy satellites.

Hats off also to runner-up Patti O'Hara of Santa Barbara, who not only recognized her own train station but also the exit sign at Yosemite's Camp Curry and the lamp posts of the Madonna Inn. Her overall score: 17

This week's quiz:

Click on the picture to take the quiz.

Looks like Main Street, USA, doesn't it? In fact, this is a Main Street, the sleepy principal artery of a nominally speedy municipality in a decidedly noncoastal state with fewer than 1 million residents. This municipality has a two-word name, as does the state in which it resides. Also, see that 10-story building in the background? That's the Hotel Alex Johnson, which went up in 1927-28, about the time a far larger construction project nearby began giving certain politicians very big heads. And now your last clue: In 1958, making "North by Northwest," Alfred Hitchcock apparently stayed here, and even included a few hotel scenes in the film. So what city is this?

Answers to last week's quiz:

Tell view the answer, click on the photo.

1. Now there's a cool sign for a jewelry store, don't you think? Except that this joint's proprietors have been in another game for decades.

2. Don't rock the bucket, padre. If the fall doesn't kill you, the carnivores on the ground might.

3. Simple, right? But how many North American Chinatowns are there? Big ones, little ones, new ones, old ones. Of the four or more I've seen this year, this is the only one whose welcome gates went up in 1971.

4. OK, so you've puzzled out the name of the town. But where is it? It's on a lake 32 miles long in a state that has been governed by George Clinton, Theodore Roosevelt and Grover Cleveland.

5. The Westons, first family of photography in our fair state, spent much of the 20th century with this Carmel-convenient point in view.

6. Nope, not the Colorado. But I can tell you that the horses are in Mexico (no, you don't get a point for that) and this river came a long way before changing direction here.

7. How many train stations are there in California? Plenty. But how many cities owe their architecture to the aftermath of a 1925 earthquake?

8. Interesting color choice on those parking lot lampposts. It's almost as if the hotelier -- oops, the owner, or maybe his wife -- has a thing for pink.

9. Go ahead. Make that big leap and assume that we're in Mexico. But more than one place in Mexico claims credit for creating the margarita. In fact, more than one place in this city on the Bay of All Saints claims credit for creating the margarita.

10. If you know municipal nicknames and can read sideways signage, you don't even need to be told that this eatery is on the ground floor of an ace hotel.