Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Terrain

  • Inland Northwest, Day 6 (County-Centric)

    We were now between race days again, with two races down and one more to go. So we could do pretty much whatever we wanted now and I decided to focus on some county counting. It was all virgin territory to me and I intended to cover as much of it as I could during…

  • Inland Northwest, Day 5 (University Loop)

    This was another early morning start although not as early as some of the others. We wouldn’t need to drive very far anymore now that we’d settled into our temporary home in Lewiston, Idaho for four nights in a row. The Washington Race Sunrise came quickly and we soon found ourselves running another half-marathon. Thankfully…

  • Inland Northwest, Day 3 (Let the Races Begin)

    The main reason we went to the Inland Northwest was to run some races. It also became an excuse to experience a part of the country I hadn’t explored much. Either way, the first of the races was finally about to begin. The Oregon Race We walked through the dark to a park along the…

  • Inland Northwest, Day 1 (Staging)

    Was there a name for that largely empty space beyond Washington’s Cascades Range and into the Idaho Panhandle? A little research suggested the Inland Northwest, or perhaps a now lesser-used designation, the Inland Empire (not to be confused with a similarly named area of California). Anyway, that’s where I traveled for a few days on…

  • England, Day 5 (Isle of Purbeck)

    Dorset’s Isle of Purbeck isn’t an island it’s a peninsula. It was probably more isolated and difficult to reach in previous centuries. So maybe it felt like an island to people back when the English Channel was the primary “road” to the outside world. Even now it’s a time-consuming overland drive so I can appreciate…

  • England, Day 4 (Bristol)

    In retrospect we probably should have done this as an overnight trip. As we soon learned, there’s no fast, direct way to drive from Dorset’s Isle of Purbeck to Bristol (map). Google says it should take a couple of hours in optimal conditions which sounds doable, if a bit slow. But conditions are rarely optimal.…

  • England, Day 3 (Dorchester)

    We began to explore a little further afield, still within Dorset, as we began to settle in to our home for the week. That took us a little further west and a few miles inland from the English Channel. It included a lot of open countryside and then a sizeable settlement. Dorchester Dorchester is the…

  • England, Day 2 (Jurassic Coast)

    We were firmly based in Swanage after the long day of travel and ready to explore our new surroundings. However, we were still pretty tired so we stuck close to home and made it an easy day. Swanage sits near the eastern end of the 96 mile (154 km) Jurassic Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage…

  • Dayton, Ohio Part 7  (Hodgepodge)

    The Dayton trip came to an end but I still had a bunch of stuff to talk about that didn’t fit into any of the earlier articles. Naturally I’ve collected them all together within this final compilation to serve as a wrap-up. Then we can call this one done and move onto the next travel…

  • Southern Heat, Part 7 (Hill Country)

    The extended road trip finally arrived at its western terminus in the Texas Hill Country. This also marked my first visit to Burnet County, a rural locale situated northwest of Austin. Locals pronounce it something like BURN-it, and that’s how it felt as the mercury hit 103° Fahrenheit (40° Celsius) each and every day. It…