the joy of google street view roulette

and all of the other lives i could be living

tonight, i think i’m going to stop by bully’s pub & grub in fleming, colorado to grab a beer, take over the touchtunes, and say hi to my favorite flannel-clad townies. maybe house some chicken wings or throw some darts. nothing can stop me — not even the fact that this bar is permanently closed now — because it lives forever in the world of google street view. or, at least, until the next update in another year or two.

for some reason, i had long considered street view from a purely practical perspective, using it only to plot out my parking options or survey the immediate area around a prospective hotel or air bnb to make sure i wasn’t staying on top of a nightclub or next to a junkyard.

then, one night a month or so ago, after i’d gotten a teensy bit stoned and had exhausted my standard youtube playlists of abandoned home and dead mall tours and deep dives into what happened to nickelodeon stars after the ‘90s, i remembered a recent tiktok i’d seen in which a streamer tooled around massachusetts via street view “until it was ugly,” and a brilliant idea was born. within 30 seconds, i was exploring the finer points of troy, pennsylvania, uttar pradesh, india, and the republic of tatarstan (“sounds fake,” i wrote in my notes).

by nature, google street view roulette is a fickle beast; sometimes you’ll land in the middle of a strip mall parking lot in iowa (there are SO many strip malls…EVERYWHERE…but also a very pleasantly-surprising amount of pizza huts). and others, you’ll find yourself standing on a jagged cliff, taking in an absolutely breathtaking view of the pacific ocean. but that’s really the beauty of it.

i spent one night at the playlist in chattanooga, tennessee, an italian eatery where the servers apparently sing and dance at your table, and another strolling and shopping in the self-proclaimed “nostalgic downtown” of morris, illinois. i got a corn dog at jane’s in newport beach, california before checking in for the evening at the spinning wheel motel in fillmore, utah, which might have been the inspiration for the 2007 movie vacancy and where i surely didn’t survive until morning without luke wilson. and perhaps most importantly, i’ve learned about so many restaurant chains i had no idea existed. spangles? pizza ranch? braum’s ice cream and hamburgers? all of these places seem like they were created for a ‘90s movie. but they’re real! google street view told me so.

there’s also something especially compelling about the nature of the moments in time that are captured on google street view. where was that woman going, and what was she doing, on the day she happened to be caught in the crosshairs of the camera in friendship, wisconsin? did those three friends, waving to to the street view van in heber springs, arkansas, remember to go and check that their greeting was immortalized on the internet?

sure, i love traveling IRL. but i must admit, the ability to explore places far and wide from the controlled and cozy environment that is my home — where nobody is coughing or crying or creeping me out — is totally delightful in a pinch.

meet you at bully’s later?