Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Distance

  • Exploring the Mitten, Part 4 (On the Road)

    We took only one substantial day-trip during the week. It followed a loop focused on Sleeping Bear Dunes designed to captured as many counties along the way as possible. Obviously, I wanted to see more than big piles of sand in return for a 270 mile (435 kilometre) drive. I consulted my article map for…

  • Exploring the Mitten, Part 1 (Pivot)

    My county counting hadn’t gone so well this year thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. I did manage to make that one brief trip to Pennsylvania to complete the state. There I picked up a dozen new counties. Not bad. However, that hardly moved the needle overall. I knew one more opportunity loomed as the summer…

  • Bonneville Salt Flats

    Near Wendover, Utah, USA (July 2011) Something strange looms in the Utah desert along Interstate 80 west of the Great Salt Lake, about an hour-and-a-half outside of Salt Lake City. The terrain begins to change, starts to flatten-out. Streaks of white appear along the ground, gradually growing into patches, then into the dominant feature. Salt.…

  • Finishing Pennsylvania, Part 1 (Planning)

    I wanted to go to Idaho this summer. Then COVID-19 happened and threw those plans into disarray. Airplanes seemed unsafe and I couldn’t tell when I might fly again. My last real trip happened in February when I went to Bermuda. Back then the pandemic seemed a million miles away, something taking place on the…

  • Crossing South Dakota

    Adventures Along Interstate 90 (June 1992) We had already completed most of our RV tour of the southwestern and interior western National Parks, and we pushed into the final stretch. We still had some time to catch a few more sites as we sped towards our home and the end of our expedition. The entirety…

  • Bermuda Shorts, Part 4 (Bermuda Railway Trail )

    The Bermuda Railway Trail surprised me in a pleasing way. I saw it on a map before I arrived and I thought it sounded interesting. Actually, it far exceeded my expectations, becoming one of the most memorable parts of my visit. A Little Context Residents and tourists alike used horsepower or their own feet to…

  • Bermuda Shorts, Part 1 (Follow the Leader)

    I’d never seen Bermuda. It simply never rose to the top of my travel list. I never thought much about it actually. I wanted to see so many other places. Nonetheless, the opportunity dropped into my lap so I took it. My wife the runner who worked for a race company went there on business.…

  • Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel

    Whittier, Alaska, USA (July 2010) I’d long wanted to traverse the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel heading to Whittier, Alaska and the Prince William Sound (map). The tiny town of Whittier holds a couple hundred people where nearly the entire population lives in a single building. You might wonder why the government built a tunnel nearly…

  • Fort Jefferson

    Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida (April 2009) Identifying the Need A massive masonry fortress rose on Garden Key, one of the Dry Tortugas, seventy miles away from Key West in the Gulf of Mexico (map). It served as a link in the chain of coastal fortification built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers…

  • Fort Pulaski National Monument

    Tybee Island, Georgia, USA (July 2006) Fort Pulaski National Monument sits between Savannah and Tybee Island (map). There is no way to miss it while driving between the two — it is the only thing out there other than marshland. The fort has a long history but probably gained its greatest prominence during the Civil…