Month: July 2014

  • Ireland, Part 6 (Obscure Geography)

    Don’t worry, this will be the final installment of the Ireland odyssey. I appreciated everyone wading through my personal indulgences so I saved the best for last, the Irish adventures that came closest to standard 12MC content. A couple of them are genuine geo-oddities. Inch Beach I mentioned Inch Beach (map) a few weeks ago…

  • Ireland, Part 5 (Maintaining My Lists)

    I couldn’t change my personality quirks even though I changed my location. In fact, a few peculiarities rooted in my mild compulsion to count and collect things seemed to be enhanced in this kind of situation. I searched earnestly for attractions aligning with those interests and pursued a means to incorporate them into the larger…

  • Ireland, Part 4 (On the Water)

    I enjoy boat rides. Ireland is surrounded by water. Is it surprising that I found myself cruising over the waves? No of course not. However, I didn’t expect it to happen four times during my trip even if a couple of those were fleeting encounters. Skellig Michael Skellig Michael ranked high on my list of…

  • Ireland, Part 3 (Wild Atlantic Way)

    Ireland designated a tourist route along its western edge between Donegal and Cork as the “Wild Atlantic Way.” Distinctive signs including a logo of what appeared to be something like ww — although stretched out farther like waves — marking the path. We didn’t follow the route on purpose although we encountered its road signs…

  • Ireland, Part 2 (A Distressing Period)

    Somewhere close to 8.2 million people lived in Ireland in 1841. Then came Phytopthora Infestans, a fungus-like microorganism that attacked Irish potato fields with a fearsome blight and utter devastation. The Great Famine killed more than a million people outright through starvation and disease between 1845 and 1850. Two million survivors fled their native land…

  • Ireland, Part 1 (Castles and Ruins)

    My typing fingers grew a little rusty over the last couple of weeks. Those of you who follow 12MC on Twitter already knew that I was in Ireland because I posted a steady stream of photographs. What may have been less understood was that I wrote all Twelve Mile Circle articles ahead of time. That’s…

  • Delphia

    The start for this research came from a recent tragic incident, a drowning at Triadelphia Reservoir in Maryland. My sympathies extend to the young victim’s family and friends of course. Afterwards I began to wonder how the reservoir got its unusual name. How did a triad (a group of three) apply to “Delphia.” The most…

  • 4 Nations, 2 Tripoints, 1 Lake

    I thought I’d written an article about Africa’s Lake Chad a long time ago. Naturally I was surprised to see it still listed on my potential topics spreadsheet when I culled it recently. A quick search of the 12MC WordPress database found minor references to Lake Chad and little else. So I guess I should…

  • Laguna del Carbón

    I’ve written about elevation lowpoints previously including Lake Assal (Africa), Lake Eyre (Australia) and Death Valley (North America). It’s been awhile since I wrote about one of those. Naturally this seemed like a good opportunity to turn my attention to South America. I don’t provide as much content about that area as I should, probably…

  • 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…