Category: Water
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Largest Artificial Islands
My favorite inspiration, the random one-time visitor, struck again. Honestly I don’t know why any of them land on Twelve Mile Circle. This time the person wondered about the world’s largest artificial island. Repeat after me: search for “Wikipedia Largest Artificial Island.” Why come to 12MC when Wikipedia has a wonderful answer already prepared? I…
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Cocibolca
English speakers know Lago Cocibolca — or “Sweet Sea” in the language of aboriginal settlers — by a different name: Lake Nicaragua. I’ve long been fascinated by Lake Nicaragua and I would love to go there someday. Thus, recent news of yet another grand plan to construct a canal renewed my interest. If completed it…
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Little Miss Muffet
A map peculiarity reminded me of an old nursery rhyme, probably one of the most famous of them all, and likely familiar to each of us: “Little Miss MuffetSat on a tuffet,Eating her curds and whey;” I’ll get to the specific reason soon enough. Let me ramble and meander for a little while though, as…
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Twelve Mile Square Reservation
Twelve Mile Circle meets a Twelve Mile Square. I thought I’d found just about every subject with a Twelve Mile theme, every town, every lake, every building, even every bottle. Apparently I missed one, although in my own defense I’ll note that it was a different shape. It formed a square rather than a circle:…
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Border Hopping on the Welsh Marches Line
I found some border weirdness between Pontrilas in Herefordshire, England and Pandy in Monmouthshire, Wales. All would be fine in an automobile. Drive between the towns on A465, cross an unremarkable bridge over the border and continue on one’s way for an eight-minute journey (map). No big deal. Take the same trip by train however…
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That’s Siouan for Water
I noticed an interesting geographic prefix as I explored Minnedosa, Manitoba in Triple Letter – Canada. The same prefix also applied to one of the individual United States, specifically Minnesota. In both cases the “Minne” portion derived from a Siouan word for water. Minnedosa was Flowing Water and Minnesota was Cloudy Water. I wondered if…
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Arlington County Will Grow
I stumbled across an article in the Washington Business Journal a few days ago. They called it, Over the river: Reagan National runway to be shifted into the Potomac. This probably wouldn’t mean much to most people. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority will adjust one of DCA’s notoriously short runways ever so slightly. That’s a…
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Ferry Hopping
I’m completely humbled by the response to the recent “How Many Islands in the USA Require Ferry Travel” article. I found 64 islands matching the criteria and stood back smugly until user-after-user uncovered additional instances that I’d overlooked. The number of islands currently stands at 77. It wouldn’t surprise me if it continued to grow.…
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How Many Islands in the USA Require Ferry Travel?
Just when I thought I’d examined domestic ferry routes from every possible angle, and new question arose. Longtime 12MC readers already know of my endless fascination with ferries and the saga of my formerly wildly popular ferry pages; still somewhat popular albeit Google’s love affair with them has waned. It’s a complicated relationship driven in…
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Tales from Dale
That’s Tales from Dale, which should not be confused with Dale’s Pale Ale from Oskar Blues, a brewery that is credited with jump-starting the microbrewery canning revolution. I happened to visit Oskar Blues long before their cans ever reached the East Cost, a bit of zymurgy trivia that makes me happy. I’ve now gone completely…