Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Distance

  • Easiest Five

    The Four Corners, where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona intersect at a quadripoint, is the quickest way to visit four of the United States. The distance between the states, by definition, equals zero. I’ve experienced that myself a couple of times: I was asked a question quite awhile ago but only checked into an…

  • Jamestown Field Trip

    I had the pleasure of serving as a parent chaperone for my son’s school field trip to Jamestown last week. Admittedly, the thought of accompanying two busloads of children aged nine-to-ten sounded a bit daunting. And of course it definitely had its challenges at times. I thought it was going to unfold like an uglier…

  • Most Landlocked State

    The query simply said, “Most Landlocked State.” It seemed innocent enough as I pondered it. I believed it would have a simple solution. However, the more I considered it the more I figured the answer could vary based upon one’s definition of landlocked. I wish I could ask the anonymous searcher what he (or she)…

  • Alphabetical Circle

    I had an ulterior motive behind the previous article, X Marks the Spot. Actually, I was researching this article when I discovered a dearth of place names beginning with the letter X. I had been wondering how small a circle I could draw that included place names starting with every letter of the alphabet. X…

  • Proof! West Coast Sunrise over Water

    I mentioned Mathew Hargreaves’ achievement a few weeks ago. He was the reader who undertook a two-year effort to document a genuine West Coast Sunrise over Water. He described his efforts as they unfolded in a series of comments on that earlier article. We speculated that one might be able to witness this unusual geo-oddity…

  • Something in Common

    Here’s a bit of a puzzler for you to think about this morning: what do Goldfield, Nevada; Lyman, Wyoming; and Hobart, Tasmania all have in common? I’ll give you a hint. Wamego, Kansas. Loyal reader “Mr Burns” now knows the answer. Anyone else? It’s an unfair question because it’s not a trivia contest, it’s an…

  • Shortest International Bridge

    I remember the story of the the alleged World’s Shortest International Bridge making the rounds of the Intertubes a few years ago. I ignored it intentionally, and not so much because of what I thought about its claim. Actually, I had no way to confirm or dispute it so it didn’t really matter to me.…

  • Thelma and Louise Route Map

    What would possibly possess the Twelve Mile Circle to examine a 20-year-old chick flick practically frame-by-frame for most of a weekend? Blame it on a skewed sense of curiosity fanned by random search engine queries I’d observed in my web logs. I’d mentioned the movie Thelma and Louise only once on 12MC, and only as…

  • The Dreadful Road Trip

    I’m told that one could see the smoke rising from the Pentagon from my home on September 11, 2001, barely two miles away. My coworkers in Crystal City, immediately to the south, felt our office building shake (explaining their added nervousness during the recent earthquake). I wouldn’t know. I was stranded more than 800 miles…

  • The Loneliest Road in the USA

    What is the “Loneliest Road in America?” Life Magazine claimed that it was the stretch of U.S. Route 50 running through Nevada, in a 1986 article. I don’t know if anyone still claims that today, or if it was even true twenty-five years ago. Additionally, there are probably far lonelier roads in Australia and Canada…