Baarle-Nassau

The above image shows the boundary between Netherlands and Belgium.

Baarle-Nassau is a municipality and a town in the southern Netherlands.
It is closely linked, with complicated borders, to the Belgian exclaves of Baarle-Hertog. Baarle-Hertog consists of 26 separate pieces of land. Apart from the main piece (called Zondereigen) located north of the Belgian town of Merksplas, there are 22 Belgian exclaves in the Netherlands and three other pieces on the Dutch-Belgian border. There are also seven Dutch exclaves located within the Belgian exclaves. Six of them are located in the largest one and a seventh in the second-largest one. An eighth Dutch exclave lies in Zondereigen. The smallest enclave, H22, measures 2,632 square metres.
The complex border situation is a result of a number of equally complex medieval treaties, agreements, land-swaps and sales between the Lords of Breda and the Dukes of Brabant. Generally speaking, predominantly agricultural or built environments became constituents of Brabant, other parts devolved to Breda. These distributions were ratified and clarified as a part of the borderline settlements arrived at during the Treaty of Maastricht in 1843.

Avenue Road

Avenue Road is a major north-south street in Toronto, Ontario. The road is a continuation of University Avenue, linked to it via Queen's Park and Queen's Park Circle East and West to form a single through route[1] which was formerly Highway 11A.
Avenue Road, the western limit of the former town of Yorkville, officially begins at Bloor Street and ends just north of Highway 401. At its southern terminus, it runs between two of Toronto's major hotels, the Park Hyatt (on the northwest corner of Bloor and Avenue Road) and the Four Seasons Hotel. On the northeast corner of the intersection with Bloor is the Church of the Redeemer. For much of its length the road is fairly residential, with a mix of small businesses, as well as a few large schools and churches. A notable site along this "lower section" is the Hare Krishna Temple, formerly the Avenue Road Church, opposite Dupont Street and across the street from the Anglican Church of the Messiah. Just north of St. Clair Avenue, Avenue Road is interrupted by Upper Canada College, ending at Lonsdale Road and resuming again at Kilbarry Road. The primary traffic route runs east of the school, following widened sections of Lonsdale Road and Oriole Parkway and returning to Avenue Road via Oxton Avenue. (The short section of Avenue Road from Kilbarry to Oxton is an ordinary two-lane side street.).[1]
North of Eglinton Avenue, the former St. James-Bond Church can be seen. This building, once housing two prime downtown congregations – St. James Square (formerly Presbyterian), and Bond Street (formerly Congregationalist) – was built in the late 1920s, and closed in June 2005. It has since been demolished. Near Lawrence Avenue is Havergal College, a large, private girl's school. Although in the former city of North York, much of the area considers itself part of North Toronto.
Avenue Road ends at Bombay Avenue, just after crossing Highway 401 (exit 367).[1] Originally Avenue Road continued from what is now the interchange by angling northeast via the Hogg's Hollow Bridge (across the Don River West Branch) to end at Yonge Street; this section of the road was incorporated into Highway 401 when it was constructed in the 1950s.
A few miles north of Toronto's Avenue Road, there is a separate Avenue Road in Richmond Hill, running almost due north of the Toronto one.

Arbre du Ténéré

L'Arbre du Ténéré, known in English as the Tree of Ténéré, was a solitary acacia, of either Acacia raddiana or Acacia tortilus, that was once considered the most isolated tree on Earth — the only one within more than 400 km. It was a landmark on caravan routes through the Ténéré region of the Sahara in northeast Niger — so well known that it is the only tree to be shown on a map at a scale of 1:4,000,000. It was located at approximately 17°45′00″N 10°04′00″E.
It was the last surviving tree of a group of trees that grew when the desert was less parched than it is today. The tree had stood alone for decades. During the winter of 1938–1939 a well was dug near the tree and it was found that the roots of the tree reached the water table 33–36 meters below the surface.

Commander of the A.M.M., Michel Lesourd, of the Service central des affaires sahariennes [Central service of Saharan affairs], saw the tree on May 21, 1939:

One must see the Tree to believe its existence. What is its secret? How can it still be living in spite of the multitudes of camels which trample at its sides. How at each azalai does not a lost camel eat its leaves and thorns? Why don't the numerous Touareg leading the salt caravans cut its branches to make fires to brew their tea? The only answer is that the tree is taboo and considered as such by the caravaniers.

There is a kind of superstition, a tribal order which is always respected. Each year the azalai gather round the Tree before facing the crossing of the Ténéré. The Acacia has become a living lighthouse; it is the first or the last landmark for the azalai leaving Agadez for Bilma, or returning.

The tree was knocked down by an allegedly drunk Libyan truck driver in 1973. On November 8, 1973 the dead tree was relocated to the Niger National Museum in the capital Niamey. It has been replaced by a simple metal sculpture representing a tree.

This was not the tree's first encounter with a truck. In his book L'épopée du Ténéré, French ethnologist and explorer Henri Lhote described his two journeys to the Tree of Ténéré. His first visit was in 1934 on the occasion of the first automobile liaison between Djanet and Agadez. He describes the tree as "an Acacia with a degenerative trunk, sick or ill in aspect. Nevertheless, the tree has nice green leaves, and some yellow flowers". He visited it again twenty-five years later, on November 26, 1959 with the Berliet-Ténéré mission, but found that it had been badly damaged after a vehicle had collided with it:

Before, this tree was green and with flowers; now it is a colourless thorn tree and naked. I cannot recognise it — it had two very distinct trunks. Now there is only one, with a stump on the side, slashed, rather than cut a metre from the soil. What has happened to this unhappy tree? Simply, a lorry going to Bilma has struck it... but it has enough space to avoid it... the taboo, sacred tree, the one which no nomad here would have dared to have hurt with his hand... this tree has been the victim of a mechanic..

Mojave phone booth

The Mojave phone booth was a lone telephone booth placed circa 1960 in the Mojave National Preserve which attracted an online following in 1997 due to its unusual location. The booth was 15 miles (24 km) from the nearest interstate highway, and miles from any buildings. Its phone number was originally +1-714-733-9969, before the area code changed to 619 and then to 760. (760, now 733, was/is the Baker, California rate center.)

Fans called the booth attempting to get a reply, and a few took trips to the booth to answer, often camping out at the site. Several callers kept recordings of their conversations. Over time, the booth became covered in graffiti, as many travelers would leave a message on it.

One incident involving the phone booth was documented by Los Angeles Times writer John Glionna, who met 51-year-old Rick Karr there. Karr claims he was instructed by the Holy Spirit to answer the phone. He spent 32 days there, answering more than 500 phone calls including repeated calls from someone who identified himself as "Sergeant Zeno from the Pentagon."

The booth was removed on May 17, 2000 by Pacific Bell, at the request of the National Park Service. Also, per Pacific Bell policy, the phone number was permanently retired. Officially, this was done to halt the environmental impact of visitors, though a letter written by the then-superintendent of the Mojave National Preserve mentions confronting Pacific Bell with some long-forgotten easement fees. A headstone-like plaque was later placed at the site. It, too, was removed by the National Park Service.

Fans of the booth also claim that the actual enclosure was destroyed by Pacific Bell after its removal.

The story inspired the creation of a motion picture, Mojave Phone Booth.
There is also a documentary short called Mojave Mirage, which can be found in the Full Frame DVD collection of documentary shorts.