Author: Twelve Mile Circle
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Fortress Fixation
I used my unexpected day off from work yesterday — courtesy of the weekend snowstorm — to focus on a webpage I’ve wanted to construct for awhile. It serves as a portal to various pages that outline historic military fortresses that I’ve encountered and recorded during my travels. Yes, along with lighthouses, waterfalls, breweries, ferries,…
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After the Snow Fell
The snow finally halted after an entire day of heavy accumulation. We can call the Washington, DC “Blizzard of 2009” officially over. Now it’s time to dig out the sidewalk. Then we can get the kids over to the sledding hill, and venture through a snowbound neighborhood before the onset of cabin fever. It looks…
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Let it Snow!
It’s snowing here in the Washington, DC area today. Already they’re calling it the snowpocalypse, the snownami, and of course “The Blizzard of 2009”. People around here tend to overreact when it snows because we don’t generally get large accumulations. Naturally everyone stripped the grocery stores bare of milk, bread, and toilet paper as it…
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Twelve Mile House
I get a lot of people looking for “Twelve Mile” places on this site. Naturally we should expect that for a site named Twelve Mile Circle. Sometimes it leads to amazing discovers like the Twelve Mile 500, the preeminent professional lawnmower race anywhere on the planet. Other times it leads to dead ends. So it…
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Coordinate Palindromes
I noticed an odd query on the site earlier today. Someone was searching for “Coordinate Palindromes in Nebraska.” I know exactly how they arrived here because the search engine linked them to one of my previous articles featuring Place Name Palindromes. However, I had no familiarity with what could possibly be considered a coordinate palindrome.…
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Texas: Is Everything Really Bigger?
I’ve been to Texas many times. I have family there, I have business there, and I’ve driven across its width. I don’t underestimate its gargantuan size. There’s a reason why “Everything is Bigger in Texas” has become such an iconic boast that borders on cliché. If Texas were still a country as it was when…
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I Jumped the Border
I crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico, bypassing all official border stations and every immigration or customs officer, and returned the same way. I suppose this was technically illegal although it was allowed with a wink and a nod on both sides of the boundary. After all, the nearest official crossing was more than a…
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My Longest Road Trip
I’ve been going through an old shoebox this week, looking at dusty photographs I took way back in the Summer of 1992 using a cheap Kodak Instamatic camera on low quality 110 film. I’d recorded an epic circular tour of the United States undertaken by a bunch of scruffy guys in their 20’s, most of…
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Long Distance Diversion
I canceled my DSL service a few days ago and moved to one of those “bundled” broadband services with voice, television and Internet access all rolled into a single plan. All went well and I don’t have any of the horror stories one typically hears about with these types of installations. It still fascinates me…
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Lost Again
My initial article on Michigan’s Lost Peninsula was pretty lame. However, it was only the second time I’d ever posted on Twelve Mile Circle in its earliest days. Of course, anyone following this site for awhile knows it’s evolved greatly over time. Do-Over Now, thanks to loyal reader Jim C., I get a rare opportunity…