Tag: Pentagon
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The Dreadful Road Trip
I’m told that one could see the smoke rising from the Pentagon from my home on September 11, 2001, barely two miles away. My coworkers in Crystal City, immediately to the south, felt our office building shake (explaining their added nervousness during the recent earthquake). I wouldn’t know. I was stranded more than 800 miles…
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Anomalies In and Around Washington, DC
Geo-oddities exist everywhere. I thought I would focus some love and attention on a few of them near where I live. Likely you can find unusual features where you live too. Let’s take a closer look at some of them. Obsolete Boundary Stones The District of Columbia once covered an exact ten miles square. In…
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Geography as Pitcher Plant
A pitcher plant feeds carnivorously on unsuspecting insects. Bugs crawl, fly or fall into the plant. They cannot escape. Soon victims drown and slowly dissolve into a soup absorbed by the plant for nutrition. The Situation I read a great article in the Washington Post over the weekend that is still available online: “Drunk Drivers…
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Smallest County in the USA, Part 4
Today we crown the “Smallest County in the United States.” As noted in Parts 1 through 3 in this series, serious problems arose with the three smallest geographical units called counties (Kalawao County, Hawaii, New York County, New York and Bristol County, Rhode Island). Those three are counties in name only. They have no independently…