Category: Roads
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All Those Modes of Transportation
I brought my elementary-aged son to “bring your child to work day” back in April. I wasn’t sure he was going to enjoy the event but he had a fine time. And I learned from it too. It was wonderful to see my very familiar office space through the eyes of someone who had never…
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Bill Williams’ Fingerprints
Peering at a random spot on a map — one of my favorite hobbies — showed a river with a name so ordinary it seemed unusual. I realize that’s an oxymoron so bear with me a little while and hear me out. Rivers often carry the names of the topography that surrounds it. Sometimes it’s…
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Mistaken Identity, Part 3
I’ve called the final installment of my series on geographic mistaken identities, Baltimore, DC. A couple of comments on the earlier articles referenced people making the wrong assumptions about airports. This is another instance of that phenomenon so I won’t dwell on it for long. Instead I’ll keep it short. That way I have room…
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County Counter Extraordinaire
Fritz Keppler of Arlington, Virginia recently discovered my humble Twelve Mile Circle blog as he searched for the boundaries of the Sandoval County exclave. He’s quickly become a regular reader and contributor in the comments section over the last few weeks. One early comment caught my eye in particular. I fixated on its enormity as…
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Clapper Bridges
A simple form of bridge design features a series of stone slabs set atop rock pilings. It ranks maybe one rung up from stepping stones placed in the water or logs laid from bank-to-bank on the evolutionary scale of bridge design. Regardless, it certainly falls within the more primitive bridge construction types imaginable. In England,…
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Saint Martin Borders and Boundaries
Borders? We don’t need no stinking borders. You didn’t really think I’d go all the way to St. Martin and sit on the beach all week, right? Well I’ve done a bit of that too, and I’ll focus some attention there in my next post. However, today it’s all about all the awesome border crossings…
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Geo-Oddities of Portland, Oregon
Every once in awhile I’m honored to share content or even an entire guest post written by a loyal Twelve Mile Circle reader. We are very lucky today. Marc Alifanz contributes his expert knowledge of Geo-oddities in Portland, Oregon. Marc is an experienced blogger both in his professional and personal life and as he demonstrates…
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Potomac in Oregon
Is there a Potomac River in Oregon? I’m only aware of the one that forms a boundary between Virginia and Maryland/Washington, DC and out to West Virginia. However, I’ve been receiving a slow but steady trickle of search engine queries on the topic for the last several weeks. Maybe I’m missing something. Is there a…
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What’s “Almost Heaven?”
We examined a song containing a blatant geographic inaccuracy in a recent article, “In Them Old Cotton Fields.” I left a hint for readers when I stated that I too took offense at a song with an equally irritating error, one having to do with the Mountain State. Many of you probably knew the answer…
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Memorable Crossings (Mexico)
I examined several border crossings between South Africa and its neighbors that are available in Google Street View in the previous installment of this series. This time I move back across the Atlantic Ocean to North America, examining similar situations in Mexico where there is actually much greater image coverage. United States There are numerous…