Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Tag: Australia

  • More Ancient Rivers

    The readers of Twelve Mile Circle seemed to anticipate where this conversation might head when I wrote about the advanced age of the French Broad River recently. I’d actually intended to write a single article about really old rivers. Then I had to split it when it got too wordy. Naturally I’d seen that same…

  • Nimby Lane

    Twelve Mile Circle has an international audience so I’m never sure whether a term that’s part of my lexicon translates geographically. Many readers probably know the term NIMBY. For the rest of you, and particularly the foreign-language readers, NIMBY is an acronym for “Not In My Back Yard.” As defined by Dictionary.com NIMBY is… “…used…

  • Savages

    I continue to make progress with the logistics supporting my recently-revealed 2015 Travel Plans. First on the docket will be a 150 mile (240 kilometre) bicycle adventure along the Great Allegheny Passage trail. That one runs between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Cumberland, Maryland. I’ve been scoping the route and noticed a peculiarly-named town on the Maryland…

  • World’s Fair Towers

    I suppose this is something of a Part 3 addendum to the recent Southern Swing articles although maybe it’s not truly the case. Perhaps it would be better to call it “inspired” by those earlier articles. We broke the return trip into a two-day event with an overnight stay in Knoxville, Tennessee. The hotel happened…

  • Seriously Broken

    The number of broken place names seemed amazing. I didn’t know what led people to memorialize broken objects, just noted that they they did and it amused me. Broken Lakes, Broken Ridges, Broken Points, Broken Valleys and on and on. The list was so exhaustive that I had a terrible time limiting my selection. So…

  • Cactus

    The previous article about Spanish punctuation embedded in various place names in the United States made my mind wander to the Desert Southwest. Then it led me down a mental tangent related to cacti for some unknown reason. As I daydreamed, I considered, perhaps I should examine places named cactus. There weren’t many, and even…

  • Wyoming, More Than Just a State

    A visitor arrived on Twelve Mile Circle the other day from Wyoming, Iowa. Certainly I was acutely aware of the State of Wyoming as well as the predecessor Wyoming in Pennsylvania. However, the Iowa rendition was a new one for me. So I conducted a quick frequency check of “populated places” designated Wyoming in the…

  • More Weird Placenames

    I’m not posting one of those lists passed around the Intertubes. So you’ve all seen them and I’m certain you know what I mean. No Monkey’s Eyebrow or Turkey Scratch here. These are actual placenames that I’ve encountered as I’ve conducted the daily task of keeping Twelve Mile Circle current. They came from various sources…

  • Make Tracks to Midland

    So I had to admit it. My odd fascination with Every County’s slow-motion serial recitation of literally every county progressed towards an obsession. I couldn’t stop checking the author’s crawling pace once every few days. Then he arrived vicariously at Midland County, Michigan about a week ago where he noted that it “got its name…

  • Sydney Tentacles

    It’s been a long time since I visited Sydney, Australia, as evidenced by the lousy quality photograph I took of the city skyline from the Taronga Zoo. That happened during the pre-digital era, or at least my pre-ownership-of-anything-digital era. Digital cameras probably existed although my cheapness would have prevented me from purchasing something until much…