Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: International

  • More Lago de Maracaibo

    More oddities began to appear as I explored the borders of Venezuela’s Lago de Maracaibo a bit further. Then I noticed that advertisements embedded entirely within unrelated websites began to display in Spanish as I visited them. Google didn’t know what to make of me with all of my disjointed Twelve Mile Circle searching. Its…

  • Borders of Lago de Maracaibo

    Strange boundaries came to light as I examined Lago de Maracaibo — Lake Maracaibo — in northwestern Venezuela. See if you agree. I’d like to give proper credit for this map although I couldn’t find a citation. I found it at some random website using Google Images. The little snippet I took should count as…

  • Select City Highpoints

    I’m not much of a highpointer, and a begrudging one at best, although I maintain a kinship with those who follow this pursuit. I like the concept of highpointing more than the actual climbing of summits. That’s why I find myself occasionally visiting sites like peakbagger.com and examining things like its Peak Lists. I admit…

  • An Arm and a Leg

    I stumbled upon Joe Batt’s Arm again. I first became acquainted with Joe Batt and his arm when Twelve Mile Circle investigated Mundane First Name Places about a year ago. The settlement grew along an inlet, colloquially called an arm, that formed a part of its name. It still amused me all these months later…

  • Moron

    Calling someone a moron would be offensive, maybe even fighting words. It derived from Greek for stupid or foolish, and later came down through Latin with a similar meaning, then finally passed along to modern languages. I knew it retained that meaning when it came to English, certainly more widely recognized than the colloquial use…

  • Directional Surname Frequency

    I spotted South Street in Manly, Iowa as I wrote Even More Manly Places. Ordinarily that wouldn’t generate much attention. For some reason I found it entertaining to see a South with an east and a west. One could go to East South or West South, although apparently nowhere southeast or southwest. Ditto for North…

  • Even More Ladylike Places

    Most readers probably anticipated that after slogging through Manly Places, Even More Manly Places, and Ladylike Places, that the next in this series would be Even More Ladylike Places. That seemed absolutely necessary in my mind to create symmetry and closure. However I’d written a variation on this theme already with the recently-published Ladysmith. I…

  • Ladylike Places

    The recent Manly Places dealt with U.S. locations that swung wildly towards an overabundance of men. Naturally I also wanted to examine the opposite condition. The inverse of manly seemed as if it should be something like ladylike so that’s what I called the followup article. However, this one required more effort. Women lived longer…

  • Even More Manly Places

    I didn’t realize the earlier Manly Places would get much of a reaction. Actually the title did suggest an element of foreshadowing. Everyone in the Twelve Mile Circle audience who thought it should have featured places named Manly, go ahead and take a bow. I intended to link the previous article to this one all…

  • Saint Alban Spreads

    Various saints appeared in recent Twelve Mile Circle articles, most recently On the Feast Day. I didn’t intent to fixate on them. The names of saints, both notable and obscure, kept coming to my attention as I researched other articles. I couldn’t simply ignore them. Take Saint Alban, for instance. Perhaps if I lived in…