Tag: Arizona
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The Park You Cannot Visit
The U.S. National Park Service currently has 394 units, with one more arriving soon. These include all manner of parks, monuments, historic sites, battlefields, seashores, recreation areas, trails and various other interesting designations. Each one is a beloved national treasure. They include the famous like Yellowstone National Park. But they also include the more obscure…
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Blank to Blank
I focused on towns named Welcome in a recent article here on Twelve Mile Circle, with specific attention to a sign outside of one in particular located in North Carolina: Welcome to Welcome. I wondered if other towns could cobble together similar symmetries at their city limits. All I could envision at the time was…
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Bill Williams’ Fingerprints
Peering at a random spot on a map — one of my favorite hobbies — showed a river with a name so ordinary it seemed unusual. I realize that’s an oxymoron so bear with me a little while and hear me out. Rivers often carry the names of the topography that surrounds it. Sometimes it’s…
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100th Meridian Initiative
The meridian line 100° west of Greenwich, England, often called simply the 100th Meridian, divides roughly the eastern side of North America from the west. This happens both geographically and culturally. So it cuts directly through the Great Plains in the United States. It goes down the middle of North and South Dakota, through Nebraska,…
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One Percent of Greenland Lives in a Single Building
[UPDATE: Block P was torn down in 2012] I received the July 2010 print edition of National Geographic in the mail over the weekend. It had an interesting article on Greenland as it struggles with the effects of global warming. Naturally it includes all the usual excellent photography, maps and narrative that one would expect…
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Four Corners
Four Corners is a unique spot in the United States. It’s the only U.S. location where four states join together with a common boundary – a quadripoint. Thus, a visitor can touch Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona simultaneously. Maps of the area show this situation clearly and anyone can get there by automobile with…
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The Largest Smallest US County (a.k.a. it sucks getting old)
Did yesterday’s dispatch seem a little shorter than usual? That’s because it was half the length I’d intended. To summarize briefly, each of the fifty United States has a smallest and a largest county. Yesterday I featured the largest of those smallest counties. Today I’ll take the opposite tack and present the smallest of the…
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The Hottest I’ve Ever Been in my Life
Good lord, it’s hot in Phoenix, Arizona today. I set a personal temperature record: 111 degrees Fahrenheit (44 degrees Celsius). I could sense heat radiating off my shirt against my skin whenever I walked into the shade. My eyeballs turned to charcoal glowing in a grill, as Mother Nature blasted a blowdryer in my face,…
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Arizona Monsoon
I arrived in Arizona just fine on the flight made possible by John McCain so I’m posting from Phoenix today. Arizona continues to surprise me. It’s summertime so we’re in that half of the year when the clocks align with the Pacific states. Arizona does not recognize Daylight Saving Time, as I’ve explained in a…
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Arizona Does Not Recognize Daylight Saving Time
If my timing were better I would have discussed this a few days ago. However, this doesn’t become very visible until the last moment. Then I forget about it and go on with my life. Invariably, twice a year, right before the change to/from Daylight Saving Time, my web traffic logs start to hum with…