Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: International

  • More Weird Placenames

    I’m not posting one of those lists passed around the Intertubes. So you’ve all seen them and I’m certain you know what I mean. No Monkey’s Eyebrow or Turkey Scratch here. These are actual placenames that I’ve encountered as I’ve conducted the daily task of keeping Twelve Mile Circle current. They came from various sources…

  • Make Tracks to Midland

    So I had to admit it. My odd fascination with Every County’s slow-motion serial recitation of literally every county progressed towards an obsession. I couldn’t stop checking the author’s crawling pace once every few days. Then he arrived vicariously at Midland County, Michigan about a week ago where he noted that it “got its name…

  • Turning the Tables

    Regular 12MC readers learned long ago that I salivate over the geography of website visitors as reported by Google Analytics, the more unusual the better. I activated that feature during the earliest days of Twelve Mile Circle and I’ve created quite a compendium of traffic logs since then. Savvy readers have toyed with my daily…

  • Sydney Tentacles

    It’s been a long time since I visited Sydney, Australia, as evidenced by the lousy quality photograph I took of the city skyline from the Taronga Zoo. That happened during the pre-digital era, or at least my pre-ownership-of-anything-digital era. Digital cameras probably existed although my cheapness would have prevented me from purchasing something until much…

  • Elvis is Everywhere

    My recent trip to Graceland put Elvis Presley, or more properly what I call the “cult of Elvis” at the forefront of my mind once again. It never wanders far, lurking in my subconscious as it does, simply waiting for a proper triggering event. And Graceland certainly qualified. So go ahead and play “Elvis is…

  • Sensing Senses

    Five senses came to mind; sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. They were very traditional human-centric senses I conceded, given various other senses in existence like echolocation, magnetoception and others. So I ignored those. I also ignored the so-called sixth sense, extrasensory perception, ESP. But you already knew that, though (kidding!). Could I find five…

  • More Full Names

    I enjoyed compiling a list of Full Name counties in the United States earlier this week. In a comment “The Basement Geographer” improved the article significantly with a list of similarly-constructed counties in Canada. It was great work on his part. Readers should refer back to his comment and check it out. That led me…

  • Pre-Nazi Swastika Architectural Details

    I traveled into the Twelve Mile Circle — the Delaware geo-oddity that inspired the name for this site — while visiting with some dear friends last weekend. In Wilmington, at Rodney Square specifically, I happened to glance up. There I noticed the wonderful Egyptian Revival architectural details on the Wilmington Public Library. My earlier Egyptian…

  • TGIF

    I’ve long wanted to add Washington’s San Juan County to my county counting list and maybe someday I’ll succeed. Pondering that eventuality I began to grow increasingly curious about its only incorporated town, Friday Harbor (map). Specifically I wondered about the story behind its name. It seemed unusual to name a settlement after a day…

  • Farthest Inland Port

    I’ve discussed the port at Duluth, Minnesota (map) before and even created a travel page for it. I was particularly fascinated with the bit of trivia that Duluth was a significant seaport even though it was located 2,342 miles (3,770 kilometres) from its eventual outlet to the Atlantic Ocean. The Duluth Seaway Port Authority described…