Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Cities/Towns

  • Reality in the Real World

    Apparently Twelve Mile Circle readers aren’t exactly aficionados of the Reality Television trend. Unfortunately my Jersey Shore article resonated with a distinct thud. I still think it’s rather odd to have a town called Jersey Shore in the middle of Pennsylvania, a solid four hour drive away from the nearest ocean. However, I’ve come to…

  • A Most Improbable Shore

    I have a soft spot for low-brow culture. I’ve admitted that before and I’m not ashamed of my enjoyment of certain popular trends. One would think in consideration that I’d be a huge fan of the Reality Television genre. I’m not, and I don’t know why. By all rights I should be able to enjoy…

  • Flip-Flopping

    Despite the title, this article has nothing to do with the upcoming election. I promise. I am so tired of living in a so-called Swing State this election cycle. Seriously, I’m ready to start breaking things. The incessant phone calls, the constant barrage of negative advertising, the people who won’t quit knocking on my door,…

  • Arizona Strip

    Arizona’s observance of time demonstrates considerable weirdness. This article isn’t about time, however, although it’s about Arizona. I think of Arizona at least twice a year, in Spring and in Autumn when the United States toggles between standard and daylight saving time. A disconnected memory triggered by the upcoming time change floated back into to…

  • Chincoteague and Assateague

    The dirty little secret of the geo-oddities blogger community is that there’s only so much geographic weirdness to go around. We all tend to overlap with our material from time-to-time, and that’s fine. We each apply our own spin on a common set facts to develop something original and creative. I’d been trying to think…

  • Big Zero

    I noticed something I hadn’t seen before as I gazed upon a map of the Canada – United States border. Well, maybe I’d noticed it before although it must not have registered at the time if that’s the case. What? You don’t stare at maps of the border? It’s one of my fixations. I’ve learned…

  • Capitals on Edge

    An interesting query came onto the site the other day. I hadn’t really thought about it previously so I decided to give it some thought and figure it. The essence of the question centered on the number of national capitals abutting international borders. It’s a situation where one hopes the nation has good relations with…

  • Locomotive Engineer for a Day

    All children want to be a locomotive engineer at one point in their childhood. Or maybe that was just me? It’s one of those exciting jobs like astronaut or fireman or race car driver. So I had an opportunity to reach back to my childhood dreams recently. I got as close as humanly possible to…

  • Bridge Between Wisconsin and Michigan

    My favorite inspiration, random Internet queries falling from the sky onto the Twelve Mile Circle via search engines, struck again recently. This time our anonymous explorer wanted to find more information about a bridge from Wisconsin to Michigan. The natural reflex would be to pull out a map… … and say to oneself, a bridge…

  • Capitals Aligned

    A query landed on Twelve Mile Circle from a search engine as they often do. Our anonymous visitor was curious about “capital cities interstate.” It took me a little while to figure out what he really wanted to know. I believe he was trying to find the small number of U.S. state capital cities that…