Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • He Went Thata Way

    One little neighborhood in Las Vegas, Nevada fills me with such joy. It first came to my attention for Supreme Court and then played a starring role as Curdsen Way in Little Miss Muffet. Now it’s inspired me a final time with Thata Way. It’s pure geo-oddity gold. I’ve pretty well exhausted the neighborhood, though.…

  • Island Became Mainland

    Twelve Mile Circle is always up for a good challenge. So, loyal reader Greg laid-down the gauntlet yesterday in the friendliest way possible. He commented on Largest Artificial Islands: “A more common phenomenon, surely, must be islands joined to a mainland by landfill. So what about the opposite of this post, the largest former islands?“…

  • Largest Artificial Islands

    My favorite inspiration, the random one-time visitor, struck again. Honestly I don’t know why any of them land on Twelve Mile Circle. This time the person wondered about the world’s largest artificial island. Repeat after me: search for “Wikipedia Largest Artificial Island.” Why come to 12MC when Wikipedia has a wonderful answer already prepared? I…

  • Cocibolca

    English speakers know Lago Cocibolca — or “Sweet Sea” in the language of aboriginal settlers — by a different name: Lake Nicaragua. I’ve long been fascinated by Lake Nicaragua and I would love to go there someday. Thus, recent news of yet another grand plan to construct a canal renewed my interest. If completed it…

  • The Trouble with Records

    I try to approach “-est” claims skeptically. Those are ones that purport to be the largest, tallest, longest, smallest, fastest, and so on. Often I’ll use qualifiers such as likely, possibly, or supposedly, to hedge my bets even when fact-checking seems to confirm an assertion. Predictably, someone in the 12MC audience will discover a more…

  • Little Miss Muffet

    A map peculiarity reminded me of an old nursery rhyme, probably one of the most famous of them all, and likely familiar to each of us: “Little Miss MuffetSat on a tuffet,Eating her curds and whey;” I’ll get to the specific reason soon enough. Let me ramble and meander for a little while though, as…

  • Bus Traps

    Calgary,(1) Alberta, developed an unusual means to curtail traffic in residential areas. Simply, the city wished to prevent automobiles from taking shortcuts through its neighborhoods. However, they still wished to serve residents with convenient public transportation. So, cars bad. Buses good. Thus arose a devious little road feature called the Bus Trap. Actually, it’s more…

  • Airports Named after Fictional Characters

    Every once in awhile I post an article not necessarily for the 12MC audience, intended more as a public service to people who might come to the site for a highly specific purpose only a single time. I’m not always sure why I receive sudden website traffic surges, however I try to be accommodating. Often…

  • What the Drung?

    While we’re speaking of street suffixes — we were just speaking of street suffixes, weren’t we — and after the stravenue encounter, 12MC stumbled upon a suffix of even more weirdness: Drung. Imagine, living not on a street, an avenue, a boulevard, a drive or even a terrace, rather a drung. Drung used in this…

  • Order in the Court

    “Court” is one of many common suffixes used to describe streets or roads. It likely derived from a term that referred to an open-air interior space hemmed-in by the walls of a large building such as a castle, as in a courtyard. Generally, not always, a road appended with court denotes a very short non-connecting…

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…