Tag: Alaska
-
Portage USA
The U.S. government shutdown ended last week and I forgot that I still had one piece of unfinished business remaining. The USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) came back online so I was ready to go. I focused on Canadian portages previously, and I had a great time doing that by the way. Now I…
-
Extreme Differences of Extremes
I was encouraged to see that I wasn’t the only person fascinated by weather extremes in So Hot, So Cold. Reader “zxo” had been thinking along similar lines a few months ago and created a series of related maps. One of those compared the differences between the highest and lowest temperatures recorded in each state.…
-
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.…
-
Latitudinal Border Station Extremes
So I’m not sure the title adequately conveyed what I’m trying to describe. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a better concise title to replace it either. Conceptually, I wanted to know the northernmost and southernmost places in the world and in the United States where one could cross an international border by automobile via a…
-
Most Remote Chinese Restaurants in North America
I wonder if I’ve observed a genuine phenomenon or if I’m falling into a confirmation bias trap. Everywhere I travel, and I meander through extremely rural areas as a matter of preference, I notice Chinese restaurants. This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned this peculiarity. I posted Not Fusion, CONfusion a couple of years ago.…
-
Named for Captain Cook
This isn’t intended as a biography of Captain James Cook although his voyages throughout the South Pacific and beyond were numerous and legendary. Rather this is about places named for Captain Cook, strewn about the waters in which he sailed and the shorelines that he charted. He has an entire society named for him if…
-
I Spy… the Street View Guy
Thank you for indulging me while I turned 12MC into a travelogue for a couple of weeks and then took a brief hiatus after I returned. Your patience will be rewarded. I’m rejuvenated now, and it’s time for more geo-oddity goodness. I like looking behind the scenes, poking behind public façades. That’s why I was…
-
Who Loves 12MC in the United States?
Who loves the Twelve Mile Circle website the most in the United States? No surprise this time. It’s Washington, DC I examined the subset of 12MC visitors arriving on the website from the United States and compared it to state populations in order to derive per capita ratios. Yes, we all understand that the District…
-
Longest Google Maps Routes
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Google Maps changes its algorithms over time. Many of the solutions developed when the article was written in 2012 no longer work] I received an email message from 12MC reader Andrew a few days ago. He said that he and a friend have been playing a game using Google Maps. The rules are…
-
Railroad Ferry
Ferries for trains? I thought it might be a late April Fool’s joke when I first encountered the possibility. They do exist. For the sake of accuracy I should note that operators do uncouple the railcars into shorter segments. The entire train doesn’t simply roll onto a ship in one long string. I’d love to…