Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Belgium (November 2003)

    Monde Sauvage, Aywaille Our visit to Belgium this time was quite a bit different than any of our previous trips. We needed to focus on keeping a 2-year-old entertained so our usual options would not work. Our little guy loves animals so visiting Monde Sauvage [roughly translated: “Wild World”] seemed a natural choice (map). His…

  • Belgium (September 1998)

    Grand’ Place, Brussels The Grand’ Place serves as the center of Brussels (map). Museums, Guild Houses and restaurants line the sides of the city square. These beautiful old buildings, decorated with elaborate stonework and gold leaf provide a spectacular visual setting. Guild Houses served as the headquarters and meeting places for various groups of craftsmen…

  • Butte du Lion (“Lion’s Mound”)

    Waterloo Battlefield, Braine-l’Alleud, Walloon Brabant, Belgium (1993, 1998) A great battle raged on June 18, 1815 just south of Brussels, Belgium near Braine-l’Alleud and Waterloo (map). The Duke of Wellington commanding allied troops from several nations defeated Napoleon Bonaparte and his fearsome army after a punishing eight-hour conflict. Historians recognize this as one of the…

  • Exploring the Mitten, Part 5 (Keeping Stock)

    We stayed put more than usual during this adventure. Nonetheless, I managed grow my various lists in modest ways. The Twelve Mile Circle audience knows what I like so none of this will be a surprise. I thought it might be a nice way to wrap-up the series. Lighthouses I’ve been captivated by lighthouses for…

  • Exploring the Mitten, Part 4 (On the Road)

    We took only one substantial day-trip during the week. It followed a loop focused on Sleeping Bear Dunes designed to captured as many counties along the way as possible. Obviously, I wanted to see more than big piles of sand in return for a 270 mile (435 kilometre) drive. I consulted my article map for…

  • Exploring the Mitten, Part 3 (Gladwin)

    Michigan contained a lot of square-shaped counties within the Mitten. Surveyors laid them down neatly like that for settlers in the mid 19th Century. Gladwin County fit the same basic definition, with rolling farmland eventually replacing much of the forest (map). Not much differentiated it from surrounding counties although it had some nice lakes. We…

  • Exploring the Mitten, Part 2 (Two Great Lakes)

    The upper tier of the mitten sits between two of the Great Lakes: Huron and Michigan. That means the farthest someone needs to travel to hit an immense body of water is maybe 75 miles (120 kilometres). Generally, unless situated directly atop the midpoint, a given location will sit even closer than that to at…

  • Exploring the Mitten, Part 1 (Pivot)

    My county counting hadn’t gone so well this year thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. I did manage to make that one brief trip to Pennsylvania to complete the state. There I picked up a dozen new counties. Not bad. However, that hardly moved the needle overall. I knew one more opportunity loomed as the summer…

  • Sydney Skyline

    As Viewed from the Taronga Zoo (October 1997) After twenty hours of flight from the east coast of the United States, we reached Australia, and arrived in Sydney with fourteen hours of jet lag to make up. We took this photograph from the north side of Port Jackson at the Taronga Zoo Sydney. From that…

  • Along Sydney Harbour

    Within the Royal Botanic Garden (October 1997) My wife sat on a wall along Farm Cove in the Royal Botanic Garden on a beautiful Spring day (map). The Sydney central business district formed a great backdrop behind her. Weather reports from home told of an unusually cold and rainy Autumn day back in the States…

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…