Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Distance

  • Odd Irish Border Road

    New reader Ian, an Irish expat living in California, has an interest in border anomalies. He pointed out an instance in his native Ireland: the most direct road corridor between two points crosses an international border multiple times in the space of just a few miles. I am aware of a similar condition in the…

  • Kenora, So Far Away

    Many months ago, in what seems like a lifetime ago in the world of Twelve Mile Circle, I focused on rural Southwestern Virginia. I demonstrated through a simple mapping design that one distant corner of the state was closer to the capitals of eight other states than to its own capital of Richmond. This was…

  • Shack at the End of the Road

    I strolled vicariously through Street View images leading to the northernmost coverage area of Canada, all the way to the town of Inuvik in the Northwest Territories. I pushed further north and further north at the tap of a trackpad until I could move no further on my laptop. Then I arrived right here at…

  • For Aficionados of Counties

    I know there are several regular readers of Twelve Mile Circle who are fascinated with the county level of government in the United States. Some of you are county counters, others of you are county highpointers, and still others might be county radio hunters. All of you are aficionados of this phenomenon of one sort…

  • It Enters then Exits

    I noticed an interesting anomaly as I returned from my recent trip down south. Naturally I considered a variety of paths before settling on my ultimate course. I nearly selected one of the other finalists but I turned it down at the last minute in favor of some back-roads through rolling countryside. Had I followed…

  • Deep South Epilogue

    I made it back from my brief journey to the Deep South last night. We covered about 2,500 miles in ten days, seeing the sites and visiting with family. Things went about as well as one could hope. I’ll consider doing this again in the future although it definitely pushed the limit of what I’d…

  • Lake Pontchartrain Circuit

    We continue to tour along the Gulf. This included a couple of day trips into Louisiana from our base on the Mississippi Coast. I’ve developed from those odysseys what I think is a great itinerary for any beer-loving aficionado of geographic oddities who needs to entertain the kids. I’ll admit that it’s a very small…

  • The Long Drive

    There was a time when I’d drive a thousand miles straight. Back then I’d stop only for gas and food and not give it a second thought. Unfortunately those days are long gone. I can make it only six to nine hours with kids in the car. Even alone I wouldn’t have the stamina to…

  • Goodbye Airlines

    We’re heading out on another epic road trip. This time we plan to cross the southeastern United States. That’s a distance of about a thousand miles (sixteen hundred kilometres), a good bit longer than even our drive to Maine last Summer. Our route takes us on a nice curve from the Mid-Atlantic down to the…

  • Seventeen Steps from Middle

    I left some unfinished business behind a few weeks ago with the Layers of Borderlocking article and it has continued to gnaw at me. As you may recall, I figured that someone standing within the boundaries of the United States would never have to travel through more than seventeen counties (eighteen if one counts the…