Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Tag: Virginia

  • Bluefield on the Border

    When I was asked to chauffeur a runner to a half-marathon with a course that crossed between the conjoined cities of Bluefield on the border between Virginia and West Virginia, how could I say no? A long weekend of fall foliage and geo-oddities? I felt like I was dropped into an episode of Weekend Roady.…

  • 81 on 81

    I’m planning a quick trip down to southwestern Virginia and neighboring West Virginia. Naturally I intend to count some new counties along the way although with other purposes too. I wish I could say it was entirely about the counties so I could finally finish Virginia. But that will have to wait for another day.…

  • Skewed Perspective

    There was a time in the early days of Twelve Mile Circle when I used to devote entire articles to differences in distances that didn’t seem plausible, although of course the actual measurements didn’t lie. For example, sticking with the Twelve theme, the twelfth article I ever posted on 12MC all the way back in…

  • U.S. States’ Lowest County Highpoints

    The setup might take a little explanation. I wanted to find the lowest county highpoint in each of the fifty United States. There would only be one per state based upon a series of lists provided by Peakbagger.com. That might lead to speculation that a better solution would involve examining all county highpoints regardless of…

  • My Smallest Park

    Twelve Mile Circle published a very rare guest post in March 2011 discussing Geo-Oddities of Portland, Oregon. It featured several unusual items including the famous Mill Ends Park (map). The Notion Readers might be familiar with the spot. It’s garnered a lot of attention from mainstream sources over the years because of its diminutive size.…

  • Presidential Birthplaces

    I’m not sure why I began to think about the birthplaces of every President of the United States. Maybe this might interest people, or so I considered. However I wasn’t fooling myself — I did it for me. Theoretically I could pass through one of these areas someday in the future and I might want…

  • 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…

  • Taking a Bath

    I continued to ponder how I might complete my county-counting adventures for the 133 counties and independent cities within the Commonwealth Virginia, with a dozen still remaining on my list. It might be feasible after a long weekend of concentrated efforts, I considered. Maybe someday. How lucky to be from somewhere like Delaware with only…

  • Just the -fax, Ma’am

    Police sergeant Joe Friday never actually said “just the facts ma’am” on the vintage television show Dragnet, according to Snopes. Rather, the character played by Jack Webb uttered different lines. People later confused things and created the classic phrase now erroneously attributed to the show. A similar confusion surrounded the suffix “-fax” appended to surnames…

  • Land of Disco

    I came across an unusual neighborhood in Raleigh, North Carolina where many of the streets were named for different genres of dance. Why yes, it was a mobile home park. How did you guess? It further confirmed my theory that trailer parks have the best street names. They use labels that everyone would love to…