Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Cities/Towns

  • A Mali Visitor

    A couple of weeks ago I bemoaned that I hadn’t had any visitors from much of Africa. So it was with great joy that I opened my Google Analytics account this morning and found that I’d recorded a visitor from Mali, my first from that west African nation. The red dot on the graphic corresponds…

  • Restaurant Split by 3 Counties

    NOTE: IN 2015 I VISITED FAMOUS LOUISE’S IN PERSON! A restaurant sitting atop the intersection of three different counties? If I were ever to ever become a restaurateur, that would be the place that I’d have to own. Loyal reader Glenn from Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina(1), has been following the Twelve Mile Circle for…

  • Black Loyalists

    I came across an article recently with the curious title, 10 Things About Canada I Didn’t Know, and indeed I learned ten new things too. I found the third fact on the list the most interesting. It claimed: “Shelburne, Nova Scotia is said to have been the fourth-largest town in North America at one point…

  • World’s Longest Golf Course

    Nullarbor Links, the “World’s Longest Golf Course” officially commenced operations with an inaugural tournament and an opening tee off on October 22. It expects to run through October 27, 2009, with a closing dinner in Kalgoorlie. Western Australia. What makes this the longest? Its eighteen holes stretch along a 1,365 kilometres (848 miles) route through…

  • Smoots Revisited

    I’m still in Boston and I found my way over to the Harvard Bridge across the Charles River, connecting the Back Bay of Boston to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Nobody calls it a particularly remarkable bridge as far as those things go, but it does offer amazing views when the weather cooperates.…

  • Glorious Day for Flying

    I got so excited about my walk through Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood that I got a little ahead of myself in the story. I should probably back up a bit. Let’s start with the airline flight that brought me to this wonderful spot along the Charles River. A nor’easter blew through last week bringing bitter…

  • Vikings in Boston?

    I’m in Boston, Massachusetts this week. Maybe I can satisfy my geo-weirdness fixation in between my all-day business meetings. Fortunately Boston has a compact core with several walkable neighborhoods and a great public transportation system. I had an opportunity to spend a couple of hours wandering around the Back Bay yesterday. This area used to…

  • 90210: Myth and Reality

    Postal Codes in the United State known as “ZIP Codes” take on a whole variety of fascinating geographical dimensions totally unexplored thus far on Twelve Mile Circle. I can think of no better way to start than with what is arguably the most famous ZIP Code on the planet, one known widely throughout pop culture…

  • The Gauntlet has been Thrown

    Several weeks ago I toyed with an idea for a recurring topic. I would close my eyes, wiggle the cursor around on the screen, and drop it randomly onto a Google Street View map. I would oblige myself to write an article about the resulting spot regardless of where it fell and with no second…

  • Fictional Geo-Marathons

    I know someone who wants to run a race in each of the fifty United States. This is a notable goal both for its endurance and its geographic sweep. I thought perhaps I could help out by putting my unusual geo-perspective to good use . Maybe I could design race courses that clip multiple states.…