Category: Elevation
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The House on the Rock
Spring Green, Wisconsin, USA (August 12, 2002) I am not even sure how to describe The House on the Rock near Spring Green, Wisconsin (map). Is it a house? Or is it a museum? Maybe it’s a cluttered attic on steroids? Did some ancient flea market suffer a devastating explosion and leave its detritus in…
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Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay
Accomack County, Virginia (June 2000) For many years I’d wanted to visit Tangier Island in the middle of Chesapeake Bay (map). People have inhabited Tangier for more than three hundred years, making a living from the bounty of the Bay, mostly isolated from their neighbors on the eastern and western shores. This has resulted in…
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Timpanogos Cave National Monument
American Fork, Utah, USA (July 2011) We’d never heard of Timpanogos Cave National Monument prior to our trip to Utah. During our planning we’d asked people for suggestions for fun activities in or near the Salt Lake Valley. A family friend who lived in the area recommended Timpanogos (map). It sounded like something right down…
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Rendezvous Beach
Bear Lake State Park; Garden City, Utah, USA (July 2011) We drove east out of Logan, Utah on Highway 89, the Logan Canyon Scenic Byway through the Bear River Mountains, a branch of the Wasatch Range. We meandered for nearly forty miles along the winding road until we crested the summit and stopped at a…
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Big Bend National Park
Terlingua, Brewster Co., Texas, USA (May 1992) We left San Antonio, passed Uvalde, passed Del Rio, driving through ever smaller and less frequent towns, moving into one of the most remote locations imaginable. We were heading towards that place where the Rio Grande River flows southeast and then takes a sudden jog to the north.…
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The Cleetwood Cove Trail
Crater Lake National Park; Klamath County, Oregon, USA (July 2012) Crater Lake National Park offers many different trails to choose amongst. The Cleetwood Cove Trail leading down to the shores of Crater Lake at Cleetwood Cove would be a good option for anyone with limited time available (map). The trailhead begins right next to Rim…
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Scenic Lakeshores of Beaver Island
Beaver Island, Michigan, USA (September 2000) While Beaver Island displayed amazing lakeshore scenery from practically every angle, three places stood out in particular Mount Pisgah Mt. Pisgah is an overgrown sand dune at the island’s northwest corner (map). It rises to 730 feet just a quarter mile from shore and it’s an obligatory climb. We…
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Bermuda Shorts, Part 9 (Lists)
I like to count a bunch of different things and that didn’t change simply because I went on vacation. If anything, it actually accelerated it. I’m always looking for opportunities to grow my lists. So I thought I’d wrap-up this final article in the Bermuda series with a summary of my progress. Parish Counting I…
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Bermuda Shorts, Part 6 (Forts )
Longtime readers of Twelve Mile Circle know that I love my forts, fortresses and fortifications. So I really loved Bermuda, a place practically custom-designed by Great Britain to be one giant fort. Its strategic placement and and heavy militarization led to its nickname the “Gibraltar of the West.” Maybe I should have included it in…
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Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Observatory
Prospect, Waldo Co., Maine (August 2009) The Penobscot Narrows bridge (map) did not exist the last time I drove along this stretch of U.S. Route 1 several years ago. I’d seen a brochure for it a couple of days earlier and decided to check it out. I set off from my base in Rockport destined…