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 Laurelhurst:
47.661293, -122.276684
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 Laurelhurst
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 King County as the starting point when you click on the link below:
We found two communities that are also named Laurelhurst.
Within Washington, the name Laurelhurst is unique.
Beyond Washington, we know of two communities that are located in the United States.
Communities Elsewhere In North America ...
New Jersey
Ocean County
We found mention of this community, but have little information.<1> For the information that we do have, please visit our profile page for the New Jersey community of Laurelhurst [Ocean County].
Oregon
Multnomah County
This Laurelhurst is located in Multnomah County and lies 148 miles [238.2 km]<2> to the south of the Laurelhurst that is located in King County.
For more information, please visit our profile page for the Multnomah County community of Laurelhurst.
Curious and Interesting Names Near Laurelhurst ...
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.
We spend a lot of time looking through Gazetteers, Almanacs & Directories that were published in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Many of the Gazetteers include the distance from a community such as Laurelhurst to various places of note, such as the White House.
With a nod to our favorite Gazetteers, the straight-line distance beginning in Laurelhurst and extending to:
Olympia, which is the State Capital of Washington, lies 51 miles [82.1 km]<2> to the southwest (SW). If you could walk a straight line from Laurelhurst to Olympia, with an average speed<3> of 2.2 miles [3.5 km] per hour, it would take most of three days to make the trip. A horse and buggy averaging 3.2 miles [5.1 km] per hour would take most of two days.
The White House (Washington, DC) is 2,317 miles [3,728.9 km] to the east (E). Driving, with an average speed of 63 miles [101.4 km] per hour, would take 5 days, a buggy would take 91 days and walking would take 132 days.
The shortest distance<4> to Jerusalem (specifically the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock) is 6,769 miles [10,893.6 km] and it lies to the north northeast (NNE).<5>
The distance to the Great Mosque of Mecca (specifically the Ka'bah - or Kaaba ) is 7,531 miles [12,120 km] and it lies to the north northeast (NNE).<6>
The distance to Saint Peter's Basilica (The Vatican) is 5,655 miles [9,100.8 km] and it lies to the north northeast (NNE).<7>'
Footnotes ...
<1>
If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer as a placeholder. As we find more information about that community, it will be added to our Gazetteer.
Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Bird Creek to see Pete ... Bird Creek is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name.
Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time.
Also keep in mind that Laurelhurst could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong county. Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out.
<2>
Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Laurelhurst) 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 Laurelhurst 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 Laurelhurst. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 47.6613, Longitude: -122.2767
<5>
The calculated bearing (or angle) to Jerusalem is 340.83 degrees.
<6>
The calculated bearing (or angle) to Mecca is 342.381 degrees.
<7>
The calculated bearing (or angle) to the Vatican is 327.718 degrees.