Category: Elevation
-
More Ancient Rivers
The readers of Twelve Mile Circle seemed to anticipate where this conversation might head when I wrote about the advanced age of the French Broad River recently. I’d actually intended to write a single article about really old rivers. Then I had to split it when it got too wordy. Naturally I’d seen that same…
-
Ancient River
The recent Twelve Mile Circle journey to western North Carolina included one of my favorite activities, whitewater rafting. The boys were finally old enough to join us although we still kept it pretty easy on them. So we stuck primarily to a series of Class II and Class III rapids (moderate to intermediate). This made…
-
Western North Carolina, Part 5 (Exclamation Point)
Twelve Mile Circle faced a bit of a geographic dilemma in western North Carolina. An issue began to appear towards the end of the week. Indeed, I might risk a doughnut hole county if I wasn’t careful. That condition would occur if I counted a bunch of contiguous counties and then left one in the…
-
Western North Carolina, Part 3 (Cherokee Loop)
The second day-trip loop from Asheville plowed nearly due west onto the domain of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation. Then we continued into Great Smoky Mountains National Park for another easy U.S. state highpoint capture. I guess it was actually more of an out-and-back. Technically, one could cut the corner just a bit…
-
Western North Carolina, Part 2 (Blue Ridge Parkway Loop)
I’m going to take a little bit of a departure from the usual Twelve Mile Circle travelogue format. I’ll actually suggest a couple of simple one-day itineraries. They mirror actual trips starting from our home base for the week in Asheville, North Carolina. Readers should feel free to customize them at their discretion. Admittedly, they…
-
Flat as a Pancake
The expression “Flat as a Pancake” obviously means something considered extremely flat. There are several U.S. states, led by Florida, that are indeed even flatter than a pancake. That’s not what this article is about. Rather I found a location that may or may not have been flatter than a pancake. Nonetheless it should be…
-
Reader Mailbag 3
Twelve Mile Circle finds itself with an overflowing mailbag once again with lots of intriguing readers suggestions. Each one of these could probably form an entire article. However, I’ll provide the short versions today to try to clear the backlog. Once again, I’ll say gladly that 12MC has the best readers. I really appreciate learning…
-
Lover’s Leap
A photograph and a quote used on the recent Hot Springs article referenced Lover’s Leap in Hot Springs, North Carolina. Twelve Mile Circle has noticed numerous other Lovers’ Leaps over the years. So then I wondered. In all of those dozens of examples, had there ever been a verifiable case where an actual lover leapt?…
-
Traveling’s Greatest Hits
It occurred to me, as I wrote two recent travelogues, that I’d visited a lot of interesting places in the last few years. I recorded my thoughts and impressions from those journeys on the pages of Twelve Mile Circle. The intent was to describe my adventures while still fresh in my mind. Looking back through…
-
Islands and Cape, Part 3 (Lighthouse Crazy)
Longtime readers of Twelve Mile Circle already know that I have a thing for lighthouses among numerous other counting-related quirks. I might have gone overboard on the recent trip to Cape Cod, however. That wasn’t my intent. It seemed as if lighthouses appeared every time I turned around, and the next thing I knew I’d…
