Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Sometimes North is South

    Canada occupies such an amazingly large swath of upper North American that, understandably, one can overlook exactly how far south the country actually extends. The Province of Ontario contains its most southerly extremes: on the mainland at Point Pelee; on solid land at the edge of Middle Island; and on open water at an international…

  • How Often Does This Get Stolen?

    Roadway warnings in the United States are almost always feature yellowish diamond-shaped signs. They might convey information such as upcoming curves, steep grades, dangerous intersections, rock slide areas, deer crossing areas or various other things to watch out for as one drives along. I saw a rather unusual one as I researched my recent article…

  • 90210: Myth and Reality

    Postal Codes in the United State known as “ZIP Codes” take on a whole variety of fascinating geographical dimensions totally unexplored thus far on Twelve Mile Circle. I can think of no better way to start than with what is arguably the most famous ZIP Code on the planet, one known widely throughout pop culture…

  • The Gauntlet has been Thrown

    Several weeks ago I toyed with an idea for a recurring topic. I would close my eyes, wiggle the cursor around on the screen, and drop it randomly onto a Google Street View map. I would oblige myself to write an article about the resulting spot regardless of where it fell and with no second…

  • I Just Liked the Photo

    I take lots of photographs, not that I’m any good at it. I’m entirely a point-and-click photographer devoid of technical expertise or serious artistic talent. Sometimes I surprise myself. The stars and the moon align on rare occasions and I actually capture an image that speaks to me on a personal level. I’m sure any…

  • Fictional Geo-Marathons

    I know someone who wants to run a race in each of the fifty United States. This is a notable goal both for its endurance and its geographic sweep. I thought perhaps I could help out by putting my unusual geo-perspective to good use . Maybe I could design race courses that clip multiple states.…

  • Gate Splits Border Community

    This is just a quick post for the morning. I wanted to alert the audience to a news article in case you haven’t seen it yet. It said: Gate splits border community, unites it in disdain. This relates to the historically unimpeded border between Derby Line, Vermont, USA and Stanstead, Québec, Canada. Split Apart The…

  • The Danger of a Small Sample Size

    Fair warning, little geographic content makes it onto Twelve Mile Circle today. Mostly I’ll focus on statistics. No, no, don’t go running for the door quite yet. It will be fun and actually the statistical slant will be relatively mild, grossly overly simplified with sweeping generalizations and involve no actual mathematics. I went to a…

  • American Meridian

    The international community recognizes a prime meridian that runs through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich in southeast London, England. It serves as a reference point for universal time and distance. However, that has not always been the case. Latitude is easy. The equator divides the planet into northern and southern hemispheres quite logically. Longitude is…

  • Corona’s Corona

    Many of my posts start off something like this: “I was looking at this map and I noticed something odd…” Right, that’s how it’s going to go today too. In this instance I was geo-tagging a pile of old photographs I’d scanned and loaded into iPhoto. Then I stumbled upon a perfect little circle of…

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…