Month: August 2015
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Where They Lived as Children
My recent trip to western North Carolina was like the gift that kept on giving for Twelve Mile Circle article ideas. Sadly I’ve reached the end of the line on that thread so this will be the last article that contains a connection to that earlier adventure. As noted in a prior installment, I enjoyed…
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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…
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Ancient River
The recent Twelve Mile Circle journey to western North Carolina included one of my favorite activities, whitewater rafting. The boys were finally old enough to join us although we still kept it pretty easy on them. So we stuck primarily to a series of Class II and Class III rapids (moderate to intermediate). This made…
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Of Of
Mouth of Wilson. I used it as a waypoint during my recent county counting quest. Otherwise I put it out of mind as I drove through an expansive rural corner of Virginia. It came to mind again a little later. I passed a sign for another town about an hour farther north and east, Meadows…
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Western North Carolina, Part 6 (County Counting Adventures)
Each Twelve Mile Circle journey has its own specific objectives. The western North Carolina adventure focused heavily on the burgeoning craft brewing scene. Collectively they also share common objectives, principally the pursuit of geo-oddities along with opportunities to pad my county counting totals. I thought I did well. I adding eighteen new counties with fourteen…
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Western North Carolina, Part 5 (Exclamation Point)
Twelve Mile Circle faced a bit of a geographic dilemma in western North Carolina. An issue began to appear towards the end of the week. Indeed, I might risk a doughnut hole county if I wasn’t careful. That condition would occur if I counted a bunch of contiguous counties and then left one in the…
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Western North Carolina, Part 4 (Beer Tourism)
Originally we’d hoped to travel north to the Thousand Islands region of New York. Unfortunately we waited too long to make our plans and couldn’t find anywhere decent to stay. Anyway, I quickly shifted my thoughts to Asheville, North Carolina, a place that had been on my mind for quite awhile. It combined an abundance…
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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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Western North Carolina, Part 2 (Blue Ridge Parkway Loop)
I’m going to take a little bit of a departure from the usual Twelve Mile Circle travelogue format. I’ll actually suggest a couple of simple one-day itineraries. They mirror actual trips starting from our home base for the week in Asheville, North Carolina. Readers should feel free to customize them at their discretion. Admittedly, they…