Tag: Cherokee
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Western North Carolina, Part 3 (Cherokee Loop)
The second day-trip loop from Asheville plowed nearly due west onto the domain of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation. Then we continued into Great Smoky Mountains National Park for another easy U.S. state highpoint capture. I guess it was actually more of an out-and-back. Technically, one could cut the corner just a bit…
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Things I Wonder
I maintain a long list of potential topics on a spreadsheet and currently it stretches several hundred rows. Some of my story ideas remain on the sheet for months or years. That’s because they must have been interesting enough to record but not substantial enough to create a standalone article. Let me winnow down the…
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Numerical Place Names
I wondered if I could find any place names composed entirely of numbers. Thus, while communities such as Thousand Oaks and Twentynine Palms in California were interesting in a sense, they wouldn’t do for my purpose. I wanted to find places that transcended the precision of a description to reach entirely higher circles of absurdity.…
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I’ve Barely Been There
I’ve been to all of the 50 United States as is true with several others of you who read Twelve Mile Circle regularly. In fact, that’s what got me started on the strange hobby of County Counting. I ran out of things to count so I had to break the individual states into their sub-units…
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Orlando: Four Towns, One Name
Four towns. Three of them fade into the background of rural obscurity. And one clearly doesn’t belong with the others. Most people know only the outlier, the one in Florida, the one with the tourists and the mouse. Orlando. I imagine few people realize or care about the other towns named Orlando. However, each had…
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Virginia Smoking Ban
A smoking ban in Virginia restaurants will begin in a few days, on December 1, 2009. Virginia does not allow standalone bars — an establishment must attribute a significant percentage of sales to food in order to maintain a liquor license — so the ban extends broadly and deeply across the state. It includes several…