Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Missisquoi Bay Exclave

    Often a question once answered leads to another question on Twelve Mile Circle. So I’d just analyzed the thousands of separate border segments between Canada and the United States. Then I stumbled upon a very small US exclave that I’d never noticed before. It’s located on Missisquoi Bay, an extension of Lake Champlain. Thus, it…

  • Canada-USA Border Segment Extremes

    Many superlatives describe the border between Canada and the United States. It’s the longest non-militarized border on the planet. It touches three different Oceans (Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic) plus the Great Lakes. It extends 8,891 kilometres (5,525 miles). While impressive, this isn’t about any of that. No, I’m more interested in the extremes in the opposite…

  • Enough With the Snow Already

    Well, here we go again. The Washington, DC area is experience its second “epic” snowstorm this season. Our previous snow in December 2009 brought about sixteen inches by the time it finished. We were already up to sixteen inches this morning at 8:00 am. Then I took this photograph: You’ll notice a little stick extending…

  • Ignorance or Brilliance?

    So it’s a very simple question. Is there an area with no time zone? Nonetheless, I dismissed the question when it first landed on Twelve Mile Circle in the form of a search query the other morning. I noticed it waiting in my user access logs although this random visitor never asked me personally. The…

  • Bibb-Monroe Revisited

    The recent changes Google made to embedded scripts for Street View is rather annoying. However, it did produce a couple of positive results. So, remember when I mentioned those newly-available images previously? They let me take a step back and wax nostalgic on some of my older articles. They’re history now but they were current…

  • Nation, State or County?

    The sovereignty of Native American nations in the United States presents a complicated set of issues, wrapped in various viewpoints and interwoven with the past, present and future. However, this entry doesn’t discuss the historical or political situation, it points to current geography. Please excuse me as I sidestep the sensitivities while focusing on boundaries…

  • Driving on the Opposite Side

    I noticed an anomaly recently as I pondered a map of Interstate 5 covering California. Generally speaking, the custom in the United States is to drive on the right side of the road.(1) Just north of Santa Clarita near Castaic Lake, however, I-5 splits and switches that order. Vehicles driving steadily along on the right…

  • Maintenance Update

    Recently I mentioned that Google Maps changed the script for embedding Street View images within blogs. Unfortunately it rendered the previous format as useless blank spots on the page. However I’ve uncovered an unexpected silver lining as I’ve reviewed and edited each file. I can now find Street View images that did not exist when…

  • The Visual Genius of Dave Oswald

    Dave Oswald isn’t a household name but he should be for aficionados of larger-than-life roadside sculptures. Mr. Oswald is the owner and proprietor of DWO Fiberglass of Sparta, Wisconsin (formerly of F.A.S.T Korp of the same town). He has been constructing these masterpieces along highways and byways since 1962, bringing joy to viewers across the…

  • Gee Thanks, Street View

    Recently Google Maps changed the script that bloggers can use to embed Street View images within their web pages. Unfortunately the new script is not backwards compatible. I learned this today when I went back to one of my previous articles and saw that the Street View images no longer existed. Instead there was nothing…

Latest Comments

  1. That was its original range before people spread it all around. Now it’s in lots of different places, including Oklahoma.

  2. I think that range needs to be expanded greatly. I’m in the Oklahoma City area and those are fairly prevalent…

  3. The law in the 1800s when most of the countries was being broke down into smaller one stated that you…

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