Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Cities/Towns

  • Southern Hills, Day 5 (Summits)

    The final race in the series ended but the vacation kept going strong. We still had a couple of days reserved for some special places and additional exploration within the Appalachians. Much of this concentrated on an area I hadn’t explored before, a rugged place where three states joined. Day 5 focused on one portion…

  • Southern Hills, Day 4 (Serendipity)

    We were well into the journey by the time we arrived at the second race in Macon, Georgia. Afterwards we drove nearly due-north until we crossed the South Carolina border. By-and-large the route avoided Interstate Highways except for a tiny stretch of I-85 near the end. We passed through rural backcountry and small town America…

  • Southern Hills, Day 3 (Unfinished Business)

    The third day brought us to our primary purpose, the start of the race series. So even though we’d already done a lot on the trip so far we still had a bunch of unfinished business ahead of us. We also had another purpose, or at least I did. The “we” part of this equation…

  • Southern Hills, Day 2 (Roadside Attractions)

    We built a buffer into our schedule. That way, we figured, if plans went awry we’d still have an extra day to get down to the first race. As it happened everything unfolded beautifully on Day 2 so it was all about seeing as many roadside attractions as we could squeeze into daylight hours. An…

  • Southern Hills, Day 1 (Positioning)

    I returned to more familiar travel patterns during the current and hopefully permanent lull in the COVID-19 pandemic. This included my first airline flight since February 2020 when I returned from Bermuda. Then the world shut down and I endured the longest period of my life without an airline flight since I was fourteen years…

  • Thumb Drive, Day 2

    On the first day I stuck to my original plan. However, I needed to pivot to something different on the second day due to a storm hundreds of miles away. As an alternate, I could finish Michigan’s Thumb with only three more counties remaining: Sanilac, Huron and Tuscola. True, it would involve backtracking along some…

  • Thumb Drive, Day 1

    My older son had to get back to Michigan State University for the start of the new semester and it was my turn to drive. It takes about nine hours to get there under ordinary circumstances so it involves an overnight stay in East Lansing. Then, I figured, I might as well stay a little…

  • Bogue Banks Bound, Part 6 (Brews)

    If I’m talking about breweries, I must be near the end of this series. Yes, thankfully, that’s the truth. I appreciate all of you for sticking around to the end. In typical fashion I’ll state up-front that this is about appreciation of the craft; quality over quantity. So typically we’ll order a flight of small…

  • Bogue Banks Bound, Part 3 (Ferries)

    Now we’re getting to the good stuff! I didn’t just sit along the shoreline and watch the sun and the waves all day. Sure I did plenty of that but I had other adventures too. Plus I got a chance to add another video to the world’s lamest YouTube channel. I hope you like ferries.…

  • Niagara Weekend, Part 2 (Falls Redux)

    I started Twelve Mile Circle back in 2007. Sometimes I wish I could return to those earliest pages and rewrite them though. They didn’t have nearly the thoughtfulness that I applied to later efforts. Even before that though I posted a number of travel topics including a visit to Niagara Falls in 2003. Eventually I…