Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Jungholz Quadripoint Boundary Cross

    The Austrian town of Jungholz presents an unusual geographic placement. Only a single point connects it to the rest of Austria. Otherwise Germany completely surrounds it. Jungholz is an Austrian exclave for all practical purposes. In the strictest technical sense, a single dot attaches it to larger Austria. However, the only convenient path to the…

  • Foreclosed

    A young couple with children purchased a home in February 2006. Today the house sits gutted; bought out by a speculator who will probably flip it when the spring market opens in a few months. I never met the family. They lived around the corner and we exchange waves as I strolled by on my…

  • Our Lady of the Gas Pump

    I was wandering through some old haunts recently. Then I spotted a building I used to see quite often. I’d forgotten all about this place, but was happy to find an unusual friend once again. An Architectural Landmark Observe the Arlington Temple United Methodist Church. This unusual structure sits in the Rosslyn section of Arlington…

  • Google Sightseeing

    It pleased me to learn today that a recent post from Twelve Mile Circle appeared on Google Sightseeing. I’d nominated the Bruny Island Ferry images I found on Google Street View (including one from inside the ferry). They first appeared on my Ferries of Australia post. Then Google Sightseeing used it as part of their…

  • Visualizing Early Washington

    A great article appeared in the Washington Post Magazine over the weekend. For now it remains available on-line on their website. “The Beginning of the Road – High-tech computer wizardry and good old-fashioned historical sleuthing are re-creating the lost world of Washington’s origins.” The Vision The underlying effort examined historical maps, drawings and narratives. It…

  • Icelandic Road Sign Map

    Iceland is a country of barely 300,000 people with two-thirds of them living in the greater Reykjavík area. That makes for wide open spaces interspersed with small, scattered settlements across the remainder of this island nation. It also results in some of the most amazingly detailed road signs imaginable. I took this photograph on a…

  • Lowest Public Restroom in North America

    As I noted recently, the highest and lowest elevations in the continental United States are only about 80 miles apart. What I didn’t say at the time was that I came across an interesting image as I researched that fact. A Restroom! Yes, a restroom sits here at the Badwater Basin in Death Valley. That…

  • Highest and Lowest, Oh So Close

    California contains both the highest and lowest elevations of the continental United States. Well, the “Lower 48” more precisely. Astoundingly, they are less than 88 miles (142 kilometers) apart with an elevation change approaching 15,000 feet. Mount Whitney is the California Highpoint at 14,494 feet (4,418 meters) above sea level. It crowns the mighty Sierra…

  • The Forgotten River Capital

    Mortals try to control nature and generally fail. I love it when people select rivers for boundaries. Invariable rivers flood, carve new channels, and people pretend it never happened. The old boundary remains in place with a chunk of territory now sitting on the “wrong” side of the river, fully separated from its homeland. I…

  • Ferries of Australia

    If I’m featuring another set of ferries then it must mean I’ve completed another national ferry page. Yes, indeed that’s the case. Today I introduce my new Ferries of Australia map (and detailed maps for Sydney and Brisbane). With that, I’ll highlight some of the more interesting routes I’ve uncovered. I hope you have an…

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…