Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Elevation

  • Going Postal, Part 1

    I alluded to postal ZIP codes in the recent Zip Lines and I’ll carry that theme through the next couple of articles. I’d stumbled upon the United States Postal Service’s Fun Facts. Someday maybe I’ll explore what exactly makes a fact “fun” although for now I think I’ll simply steal liberally from that page and…

  • Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

    I pondered Zip Lines recently. Actually I’d been researching postal ZIP Codes and wondering how I’d missed the 50th Birthday of the system in 2013. Then I noticed an auto-suggestion for Zip Lines and it zipped me straight down a protracted tangent metaphorically speaking. I decided to find the longest Zip Line in the world,…

  • Particularly Possessive

    I noticed that Prince George’s County, Queen Anne’s County and St. Mary’s County — all in Maryland — included the genitive apostrophe to form their possessive constructions. I’d always taken it on faith that the United States Board on Geographic Names disallowed apostrophes for that specific purpose. That’s how we ended-up with Harpers Ferry and…

  • Salty, Saltier, Saltiest, Salton

    Loyal reader “Lyn” contacted Twelve Mile Circle a few weeks ago. With it came a stack of digital images from a recent road trip to California’s Salton Sea. This has long been on my list of places I’d love to see some day, and I still hope that will happen. So I certainly enjoyed and…

  • Highpoints of Central America

    Today begins an effort to try to increase pushpins on the 12MC Complete Index Map for nations underrepresented by previous articles. This came from a realization that I’d continued to overlook certain parts of the world even after hundreds of posts. I’ll try to make it an occasional, relevant and unobtrusive effort, as with the…

  • U.S. States’ Lowest County Highpoints

    The setup might take a little explanation. I wanted to find the lowest county highpoint in each of the fifty United States. There would only be one per state based upon a series of lists provided by Peakbagger.com. That might lead to speculation that a better solution would involve examining all county highpoints regardless of…

  • Turpan Depression

    Are you ready for another installment in my occasional series on lowpoints? I am. Everyone always focuses on the greatest of mountains and the highest of elevations. Lowpoints need a little love too, especially those below sea level, and the further down the better. I turned my attention to China, a nation that does not…

  • Ireland, Part 1 (Castles and Ruins)

    My typing fingers grew a little rusty over the last couple of weeks. Those of you who follow 12MC on Twitter already knew that I was in Ireland because I posted a steady stream of photographs. What may have been less understood was that I wrote all Twelve Mile Circle articles ahead of time. That’s…

  • Laguna del Carbón

    I’ve written about elevation lowpoints previously including Lake Assal (Africa), Lake Eyre (Australia) and Death Valley (North America). It’s been awhile since I wrote about one of those. Naturally this seemed like a good opportunity to turn my attention to South America. I don’t provide as much content about that area as I should, probably…

  • Not the Usual State Capital Trivia

    It was time to clear my list of unwritten articles again. While doing that I noticed several of them involved state capitals, or their capitol buildings. Well, I’m not sure what the “usual” State Capital trivia might be much less the unusual. Nonetheless, let’s consider this an article on topics that the average layperson may…