Category: Cities/Towns
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Traveling Man
It seems I’ve done a lot of traveling as I look back across the last several months. I travel fairly frequently anyway for work and for pleasure, but this has been a particularly busy period. Here’s a recap of places I’ve visited since the Spring, as told through previous Twelve Mile Circle dispatches. If you’ve…
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Charleston Preview
I’ve spent the last several days in Charleston, South Carolina, and packed a lot of visiting into a short amount of time. Of course I’ll add more information to the permanent pages of my Travel Adventures site over the coming weeks. In the meantime, I wanted to give you (my regular blog readers), a sneak…
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Baarle-Hertog Quadripoint Boundary Cross
I love getting comments from readers. Recently I received an email about a quote from my recent Jungholz Quadripoint Boundary Cross posting. As a reminder, a quadripoint occurs when four borders meet at a single point, and example being the “Four Corners” of the United States where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado join together.…
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Geography of Link Farms that Target Me
I personally moderate every comment on Twelve Mile Circle. If you make an effort to respond to one of my posts with something thoughtful, rest assured I’ve genuinely read it. A few months ago I had a growing problem with spammers. Thankfully I found a solution that keeps that junk away from my pages automatically.…
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Jungholz Quadripoint Boundary Cross
The Austrian town of Jungholz presents an unusual geographic placement. Only a single point connects it to the rest of Austria. Otherwise Germany completely surrounds it. Jungholz is an Austrian exclave for all practical purposes. In the strictest technical sense, a single dot attaches it to larger Austria. However, the only convenient path to the…
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Our Lady of the Gas Pump
I was wandering through some old haunts recently. Then I spotted a building I used to see quite often. I’d forgotten all about this place, but was happy to find an unusual friend once again. An Architectural Landmark Observe the Arlington Temple United Methodist Church. This unusual structure sits in the Rosslyn section of Arlington…
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Visualizing Early Washington
A great article appeared in the Washington Post Magazine over the weekend. For now it remains available on-line on their website. “The Beginning of the Road – High-tech computer wizardry and good old-fashioned historical sleuthing are re-creating the lost world of Washington’s origins.” The Vision The underlying effort examined historical maps, drawings and narratives. It…
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The Forgotten River Capital
Mortals try to control nature and generally fail. I love it when people select rivers for boundaries. Invariable rivers flood, carve new channels, and people pretend it never happened. The old boundary remains in place with a chunk of territory now sitting on the “wrong” side of the river, fully separated from its homeland. I…
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The Grassy Knoll
This small hillside marks perhaps the most controversial landscaping feature in modern United States history. It has been linked inextricably with shadowy figures and sinister secrets. It is the infamous Grassy Knoll. President John F. Kennedy rode directly past this spot when gunfire ended his life on November 23, 1963. Depending on the evidence one…
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Slug Lines
Geography can influence social behavior and that’s the case with slug lines. This article has nothing to do with gastropods. Rather it’s a commuting method originating organically without any type of government involvement or sanction in the Washington, DC area. Since then it has also spread to other cities. It’s an efficient arrangement that matches…