Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Roads

  • A Single Point on the Border

    I encountered a number of interesting situations as I pulled together my recent series of borderlocking articles. One of those revelations pertained to Jeff Davis County(1) in the State of Texas. Examine its layout closely. Clearly it borders on Mexico. However that happens only at a single point along the Rio Grande River at its…

  • Lake Pontchartrain Circuit

    We continue to tour along the Gulf. This included a couple of day trips into Louisiana from our base on the Mississippi Coast. I’ve developed from those odysseys what I think is a great itinerary for any beer-loving aficionado of geographic oddities who needs to entertain the kids. I’ll admit that it’s a very small…

  • The Long Drive

    There was a time when I’d drive a thousand miles straight. Back then I’d stop only for gas and food and not give it a second thought. Unfortunately those days are long gone. I can make it only six to nine hours with kids in the car. Even alone I wouldn’t have the stamina to…

  • Goodbye Airlines

    We’re heading out on another epic road trip. This time we plan to cross the southeastern United States. That’s a distance of about a thousand miles (sixteen hundred kilometres), a good bit longer than even our drive to Maine last Summer. Our route takes us on a nice curve from the Mid-Atlantic down to the…

  • Seventeen Steps from Middle

    I left some unfinished business behind a few weeks ago with the Layers of Borderlocking article and it has continued to gnaw at me. As you may recall, I figured that someone standing within the boundaries of the United States would never have to travel through more than seventeen counties (eighteen if one counts the…

  • Revisiting Previous Articles with Street View – UK

    I’m still having a great time with the recent major release of Google Street View images for the United Kingdom. It’s like somebody opened a new playground with so many different places for me to travel vicariously. It also offered an opportunity to go back to some of my earlier articles and see if I…

  • Random Selection, UK

    Google Maps released a huge set of Street View images for the United Kingdom a few days ago as you’ve undoubtedly learned on all of the geo-blogs by now. This extends the level of coverage for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to upwards of 95% of the road infrastructure. I’m sure you’ve had an…

  • Superlative Tunnels

    I’ve been enjoying the World’s Longest Tunnel page recently and I decided to see if I could locate some of the more striking examples using maps and photo sites. Oftentimes I could locate those spots although honestly, sometimes the interior of a tunnel isn’t particularly impressive. Anyway, let’s see what we can find in these…

  • Also Very Northerly

    Let’s get back to the second part of the geography puzzle originally posed by loyal reader Matthias. We will continue to explore the current northernmost reaches of Google Street View. It’s still Deadhorse, Alaska at the very moment I draft this article. However, that will change as Google’s adventurous drivers reach new extremes. The European…

  • Streetview Beats a Deadhorse

    It all started innocently enough as a challenge from loyal reader “Matthias.” He began to ponder various geo-oddities surrounding the northernmost reach of Google Street View. Of course, I was up for a mental adventure after having been trapped in my home for several days due to snow.(1) However, unbeknownst to Matthias, Google Street View…