Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Railroad Ferry

    Ferries for trains? I thought it might be a late April Fool’s joke when I first encountered the possibility. They do exist. For the sake of accuracy I should note that operators do uncouple the railcars into shorter segments. The entire train doesn’t simply roll onto a ship in one long string. I’d love to…

  • Little Circles

    I love circles, which I guess would be an entirely redundant statement on Twelve Mile Circle. I’ve been toying with a concept in the back of my mind for awhile. What it the smallest circle that I can draw on a map that touches the largest number of countries? Google Maps doesn’t offer such a…

  • Political Access

    No less than the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) made an interesting claim. They called it “Other Interstate Trivia, but I considered it Gold. “All but five state capitals are served by the interstate highway system. Those that are not served are: Juneau, AK; Dover, DE; Jefferson City, MO; Carson City, NV;…

  • Heterogram Place Names

    It’s not only geography that makes a place unique. It can also be an unusual array of letters forming its name, for example what I featured awhile ago on Place Name Palindromes. I traveled down a several-hours tangent recently in search of heterogram place names. Those are words where each letter of the alphabet appears…

  • What-le-What?

    I ponder the intricacies of maps, just staring at various corners of the world for no particular reason. I think that’s fairly typical for much of the 12MC crowd although maybe not completely understood by the public at large. That’s their loss. How else would I find an odd conglomeration of LE towns in the…

  • Geographical Survey of 12MC

    The author of the Geographic Travels blog provided a survey of his personal geography in an article a few days ago. That sounded like a fun idea so I decided to use the same survey questions for a “Geographical Survey of 12MC.” Then I decided to add a few more questions and answers. Maybe others…

  • Wyoming, Texas

    No, as far as I know there isn’t a town of Wyoming in Texas. Believe me, I’d hoped there might be such a place but the Geographic Names Information System provided by the U.S. Geological Survey doesn’t list one. Conversely there aren’t many items of significance named Texas in Wyoming either, other than a mine,…

  • Bad Boys Revisited

    Everybody sing along! “Bad boys, bad boys / Watcha gonna do / Watcha gonna do when they come for you?” That’s right, if I’m quoting lyrics from Inner Circle then I must be talking about the long-running television show COPS again. Apparently more 12MC readers are fans of COPS than I ever imagined when I…

  • Would You Believe?

    Have you ever dropped into Google Street View and found terrain that just didn’t “look right,” and differed from your expectations? I think we all have stereotypical preconceptions of how a place is supposed to appear, especially if we’ve never fully explore the area in person. Below is the image that surprised me a few…

  • Springtime

    We’re experiencing an unusually early springtime in the Mid-Atlantic, with temperatures more akin to May than March. I like warmer weather so that’s a wonderful development in my mind although my seasonal allergies tend to disagree. I’ve been able to hit the bike trails after work each evening aided by the switch to Daylight Saving…

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…