RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Illinois >> Bureau County >> Greenoak >> Tidbits & TriviaIndex...

Outdoor Activities ...

As we travel, we like to pursue some of our interests (such as astronomy and bird watching).

When in Greenoak, we use the following websites to find information relevant to Greenoak and the surrounding area.

  • Weather ...
  • Astronomy & Satellites ...
    • Whether using binoculars, a small telescope or the naked-eye, the Heavens-Above website can help you to find your way around the night-time sky. In addition to detailed sky charts, their website will help you find planets, asteriods, comets, satellites and their tracks across the sky.
    • To give accurate results, Heavens-Above requires the latitude and longitude of your location. As a starting point, when we link to Heavens-Above, we pass this GPS location for Greenoak:
    • 41.480297, -89.398811
    • Once you're on the Heavens-Above website, you can improve its accuracy by giving a more precise longitude and latitude as your actual position.
    • Open the Heavens-Above website centered on Greenoak
  • Bird Watching ...
    • We enjoy finding new spots for bird watching and we use the eBird website for local sighting reports and to help identify hotspots.
    • The eBird website is organized on a county-by-county basis. We have selected Bureau County as the starting point when you click on the link below:
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Bureau County
    • Since Greenoak is near Lee County and also La Salle County, we have provided a link to their eBird sighting reports:
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Lee County
    • Open the eBird sighting report for La Salle County
  • Waymarking ...
    • Looking for somewhere out of the ordinary? Find a unique place and want to share it with others? Then it's time to visit Waymarking.com:
    • Open the Waymark.com report for Greenoak

Curious and Interesting Names Near Greenoak ...

As we travel, we always see a community with a name that gives pause. While there are names which are interesting or familiar, some catch our attention or strike our fancy. We always wonder about such a name. If time permits and the community is not too far, we'll usually try to make a side-trip.

  • Cherry
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
  • Coal Hollow
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
    • Coal Hollow is located in Bureau County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Coal Hollow
  • Dover
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
  • Ladd
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Limerick
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Maytown
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
    • Maytown is located in Lee County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Maytown
  • Ohio
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Walnut
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)

How Far From Greenoak to ...

We spend a lot of time looking through Gazetteers that were published in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Many of the Gazetteers include the distance from a community such as Greenoak to various places of note, such as the White House.

With a nod to our favorite Gazetteers, the straight-line distance<2> beginning in Greenoak and extending to:

  • Princeton, which is the Seat of Bureau County, lies just to the South Southwest.
  • Springfield, which is the State Capital of Illinois, lies 117 miles [188.3 km]<2> to the south (S). If you could drive a straight line from Greenoak to Springfield, with an average speed<3>of 63 miles [101.4 km] per hour, it would take about two hours to make the trip. A comfortable walk of 2.2 miles [3.5 km] per hour would take 7 days. A horse and buggy averaging 3.2 miles [5.1 km] per hour would take 5 days.
  • The White House (Washington, DC) is 675 miles [1,086.3 km] to the east southeast (ESE). Driving would take just about two full days, a buggy would take 27 days and walking would take 39 days.
  • The shortest distance<4> to Jerusalem (specifically the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock) is 6,266 miles [10,084.1 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<5>
  • The distance to the Great Mosque of Mecca (specifically the Ka'bah - or Kaaba ) is 7,007 miles [11,276.7 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<6>
  • The distance to Saint Peter's Basilica (The Vatican) is 4,893 miles [7,874.5 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<7>'

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Greenoak) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<3>While we have tried to pick reasonable speeds, the rate of travel is very theoretical - obstacles like fences, hills, lakes, river crossings and rest stops have been ignored. When we say 'Days' of travel, we're assuming 8 hours of travel per day.
<4>The shortest line can be visualized by stretching a string on a Globe from Point A to Point B - this is known as a Great Circle Route. Where you might expect the shortest route from Greenoak to the Middle East to be East and South, the Great Circle Route actually lies to the North and East.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Greenoak. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 41.4803, Longitude: -89.3988       In this case, the coordinates for Greenoak have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<5>The calculated bearing (or angle) to Jerusalem is 315.612 degrees.
<6>The calculated bearing (or angle) to Mecca is 312.618 degrees.
<7>The calculated bearing (or angle) to the Vatican is 309.554 degrees.