Category: International
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Seriously Broken
The number of broken place names seemed amazing. I didn’t know what led people to memorialize broken objects, just noted that they they did and it amused me. Broken Lakes, Broken Ridges, Broken Points, Broken Valleys and on and on. The list was so exhaustive that I had a terrible time limiting my selection. So…
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Now You See It, Now You Don’t
I thought about rivers, specifically those with segments that disappeared for awhile. It wasn’t about completely subterranean rivers although those were certainly fascinating in their own right. Rather, it was about surface rivers with underground components. I knew they existed because I had a hazy recollection of reading about one once. How rare were they,…
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Woonerf
In some places they’re called complete streets, home zones or shared spaces. However, I preferred the original Dutch term “woonerf” (pronounced VONE-erf). It described a concept as old as urban civilization itself although applied within a new context. It follows a very simple idea, a notion of streets shared by everyone. That concept took a…
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Me and What Army
The format today will be similar to the “Odds and Ends” series, a veritable pu pu platter of tasty tidbits. However, the primary difference will be that inspiration came almost entirely from the far corners of the 12MC army. I still have several other reader contributions waiting in the wings too. Please be patient if…
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A Prisoner to Geo-Oddities
I noticed a reference to a prison in Alaska that turned out to be located not too distant from where I roamed around the Kenai Peninsula during my journeys a few summers ago. It was a prison with a view, in fact it was located somewhere (map) in the background of this photo I took…
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Hardly Tropic
Technically, the tropics would be an area hugging the equator between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, between approximately 23°26′-or-so north and south. The two latitudes marked the extent the sun might appear directly overhead if only briefly on a single day, the summer solstice. Tropics also had a more widespread definition…
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Kotsiubynske
I’ve been examining maps of Ukraine closely over the last several months as I’m sure many in the 12MC audience have been doing likewise. In the course of that effort I noticed a little anomaly far removed from the action and completely unrelated to the conflict. It pertained to the Kyiv (Kiev) Oblast surrounding the…
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Schwebefähre
Twelve Mile Circle received a wonderful suggestion from loyal reader “Joshua D” probably six months ago. He mentioned the schwebefähre (“suspension ferry“) in Rendsburg, Germany. These structures went by various names in different languages including “transporter bridge” in English. They were so odd, so whimsical, so amazingly impractical that I found them difficult to comprehend,…