Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Who Loves 12MC?

    Who loves the Twelve Mile Circle website the most? Anguilla, apparently. I’ve tracked 12MC usage statistics for nearly five years, yet I hadn’t taken the next logical step by correlating this to per capita totals. Curiosity got the best of me and I created a simple spreadsheet comparing numbers of 12MC visitors by nations/dependent territories…

  • Longest Natural Straight Line

    I once featured a stretch of completely straight railroad track across the Nullarbor Plain. It ran an amazing 478 kilometres (297 miles), in Australia’s Longest Straight Line. I’ve also focused considerable attention on the Canada-United States border. That one hugs the 49th degree of latitude north for something like 2,000 km (1,250 mi) — although…

  • Infrequent Crossings, US-Mexico

    Things have settled down on Twelve Mile Circle after a brief weather disruption. I’m able to return to obscure United States border crossings. This second part focuses on the southern border with Mexico. So I consulted the same source that I used when I explored Canadian border crossing facts, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau…

  • We Interrupt our Regularly Scheduled Programming

    Those 12MC readers expecting to see the results of Mexican foreshadowing will have to wait a little longer. It’s been a rather wild ride in the Washington, DC area over the last couple of days. The thermometer hit 104° Fahrenheit (40° c.) on Friday afternoon. That not only shattered a temperature extreme for the date,…

  • Infrequent Crossings, US-Canada

    Twelve Mile Circle loves its borders, and probably none more than the border between Canada and the United States (for instance). The statistics are impressive: 119 border crossings; 39,254,000 trips by Canadians into the United States in 2009; and nearly $500 million in international trade passing every day on the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario…

  • Natural Bridges

    A natural bridge or natural arch appears as advertised. These geological formations erode in such a way as to leave behind an opening beneath stone that continues to stand. Water seems to be the most common denominator. Before today I never realized that a Natural Arch and Bridge Society existed “to support the interests of…

  • Busy Days

    The Twelve Mile Circle audience seems to enjoy little contests or puzzles interspersed within the usual healthy dose of geo-oddity goodness. Actually, sometimes I think the community relishes interactive topics even more than the purely informational ones based upon sheer number of comments posted to each article. Hopefully today will provide another opportunity for that.…

  • A Plan for Rare Visitors

    I have a love/hate relationship with my relentless need to count. For example, I enjoy seeing visitors from so many different nations stopping by Twelve Mile Circle. I understand I should count my blessings yet it frustrates me to know that a handful of places have never appeared in my logs. One would think this…

  • Hazy Hedge Maze Memories

    I poked around that place where Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands share a common border, better known as the BEDENL tripoint, using Google Maps satellite view the other day. I noticed an interesting topiary feature. Labyrint Drielandenpunt I found a hedge maze! I’ve seen them called garden mazes, labyrinths and various other terms, too. They…

  • Rama Setu (Adam’s Bridge)

    Articles often influence new 12MC articles that I never anticipated originally, as is the case today. Actually, this one come from a comment by “Snabelabe” on All Ways – Every Cardinal Direction. I fixated on a link embedded in the comment, a list of countries and territories by border/area ratio. I always gravitate towards extremes…

Latest Comments

  2. Hi Mr. Howder — Just going from memory, I recall that your “rule” for counting a nation/state/county is “if I’m…

  5. Does anyone have actual music to the song – Tanaha ,Timpson. Bobo and Blair ?? It was recorded by Tex…