Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Borders

  • Mitten Accomplished

    I got a unique opportunity to visit counties in a corner of the Midwest I hadn’t touched much when my older kid decided to go to college in Michigan. But it didn’t offer a lot of time for my quest, just a four year window before graduation. Even so, I set what I thought was…

  • Mackinac’s Orbit, Part 6 (Mackinaw City)

    We drew ever closer to our ultimate target. Only a fifteen minute ferry ride separated us from Mackinac Island today, a place we could see quite clearly from the mainland shore. However, we focused on Mackinaw City and its immediate surroundings so the island had to wait. Mackinaw City is nothing like Mackinac Island despite…

  • Mackinac’s Orbit, Part 5 (Eastern U.P.)

    Staying in St. Ignace for a week was a whole lot cheaper than staying on Mackinac Island. It was also a lot easier to use as a base for exploring the eastern end of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Once, many years ago, I drove along the southern edge of the U.P. and stayed overnight. Other than…

  • Mackinac’s Orbit, Part 3 (Sault Ste. Marie)

    Now safely ensconced in St. Ignace on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, we could venture out on day-trips from our home base. One such journey brought us even farther up the U.P. to Sault Ste. Marie. This was my first visit to the town but not the first time it appeared in Twelve Mile Circle. I devoted…

  • Le Tour De Shore

    It seemed like a good idea last January when a friend mentioned Le Tour De Shore to me. He wanted to try a long distance bicycle ride and what better place to try that a place almost completely devoid of hills? There’s almost nothing but flat out on the Delmarva Peninsula. So he convinced me…

  • Indiana Toll Road Time Zone Crossing

    So you’re sitting somewhere outside of Chicago, Illinois cruising along the Indiana Toll Road. Most people know that Chicago and all of its nearby Indiana suburbs follow Central Time. On the other hand, much of the rest of Indiana follows Eastern Time. You just want to know when to change your watch, right? Let’s cut…

  • Southern Hills, Day 6 (Georgia Smokies)

    The races we ran on successive mornings were now a distant memory. On this final full day we slept-in and focused on a full slate of roadside amusements instead. We only had to make it to Atlanta to catch our flight the following morning. This time we concentrated on the Georgia side of the tripoint…

  • Southern Hills, Day 5 (Summits)

    The final race in the series ended but the vacation kept going strong. We still had a couple of days reserved for some special places and additional exploration within the Appalachians. Much of this concentrated on an area I hadn’t explored before, a rugged place where three states joined. Day 5 focused on one portion…

  • Southern Hills, Day 4 (Serendipity)

    We were well into the journey by the time we arrived at the second race in Macon, Georgia. Afterwards we drove nearly due-north until we crossed the South Carolina border. By-and-large the route avoided Interstate Highways except for a tiny stretch of I-85 near the end. We passed through rural backcountry and small town America…

  • Southern Hills, Day 3 (Unfinished Business)

    The third day brought us to our primary purpose, the start of the race series. So even though we’d already done a lot on the trip so far we still had a bunch of unfinished business ahead of us. We also had another purpose, or at least I did. The “we” part of this equation…