I think one of my favorite "how the ...?!" geography names is the Owyhee River area of south east Oregon. It's a high, dry steppe where nothing much grows exce

I think one of my favorite "how the ...?!" geography names is the Owyhee River area of south east Oregon. It's a high, dry steppe where nothing much grows except sagebrush, and hardly any one lives. Owyhee, though, is a different spelling of Hawaii, and the river was named for some Hawaiian explorers who set out to explore the area and were never seen again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owyhee_River#Naming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owyhee_River#Naming