Category: Terrain

  • History, Geography and Fitness

    Who could ever grow tired of this view? I haven’t although I do like a little scenic variation now-and-then. I have a pleasant 20-mile bicycle route I like to take that hugs the Potomac riverside, including this segment I described previously in Monumental Ride. From there I curve onto the former Washington & Old Dominion…

  • Captains Less Prestigious

    I had no trouble finding populated places named for Captain James Cook, the legendary 18th Century explorer and navigator, along the edges of the waters he sailed. However, plenty of other captains sailed the oceans during that same period. Naturally I wondered if the maps memorialized others similarly. Could I find other places named “Captain…

  • Move the Road

    I’m not sure why it came to mind. I somehow remembered an odd series of jogs in a road I haven’t driven on in several years. Here is an example: Each summer I drove along Occohannock Neck Road on Virginia’s portion of the Delmarva Peninsula. A friend’s family owned a summer cottage at Silver Beach…

  • Green River Island

    Green River Island is one of those places that seems to belong to the wrong state. In this instance it feels like it should be part of Indiana but it’s actually part of Kentucky. It hardly seems like an island either although vestiges of its old topography continue to remain visible. Rather, the “island” has…

  • Named for Captain Cook

    This isn’t intended as a biography of Captain James Cook although his voyages throughout the South Pacific and beyond were numerous and legendary. Rather this is about places named for Captain Cook, strewn about the waters in which he sailed and the shorelines that he charted. He has an entire society named for him if…

  • Connecticut Extremes: Water, Water Everywhere

    Having survived the highpoint-tripoint humidity challenge earlier that morning, Steve of CTMQ led Scott of The Scenic Drive and myself to the next set of Connecticut geography extremes. It eventually dawned on us that they almost all involved water in some manner. The first attraction, Connecticut’s highest elevated pond, appeared by the roadside just a…

  • Connecticut Extremes: Appetizer

    Merriam-Webster includes various definitions of appetizer including: “something that stimulates a desire for more (a literary appetizer).” That’s what I’m serving this evening, a Connecticut Geo-Oddities Appetizer. I took a bunch of photographs of signs during my recent adventure and I thought I might offer them to the 12MC audience as a quiz. How many…

  • The Final Leg

    The adventure ends. This article will post automatically as I’m flying somewhere over the vast interior of the United States assuming my WordPress blogging software operates correctly. I will likely be home by the time many of you read this. It’s been a great two weeks of traveling through corners of Washington and Oregon I’d…

  • Winding Our Way Back

    It’s getting down to the final days. Fortunately Central Oregon has plenty to offer so I can wring-out a last few activities before we slowly wind our way back towards the north. As noted previously, the map represents several distinct side-trips rather than a single concerted effort. This is intended to provide an orientation and…

  • Around the Bend

    We’re spending a great portion of our adventure in and around the vicinity of Bend, Oregon. We’ve rented a house for the week and we’re using as our home base. That has provided us with a sense of normalcy and a means to travel to numerous outdoor destinations while minimizing travel time. Once again, the…