Category: U.S. States
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Flip-Flopping
Despite the title, this article has nothing to do with the upcoming election. I promise. I am so tired of living in a so-called Swing State this election cycle. Seriously, I’m ready to start breaking things. The incessant phone calls, the constant barrage of negative advertising, the people who won’t quit knocking on my door,…
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Ferry from Maryland to Virginia
It’s time to provide another Public Service Announcement. These are Twelve Mile Circle articles that answer burning questions from one-time visitors in the general public that may not appeal to the regular audience. I’ll talk about maps, transportation and a little about history that may interest a localized segment of readers. Feel free to continue…
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Bridge Between Wisconsin and Michigan
My favorite inspiration, random Internet queries falling from the sky onto the Twelve Mile Circle via search engines, struck again recently. This time our anonymous explorer wanted to find more information about a bridge from Wisconsin to Michigan. The natural reflex would be to pull out a map… … and say to oneself, a bridge…
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Capitals Aligned
A query landed on Twelve Mile Circle from a search engine as they often do. Our anonymous visitor was curious about “capital cities interstate.” It took me a little while to figure out what he really wanted to know. I believe he was trying to find the small number of U.S. state capital cities that…
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Green River Island
Green River Island is one of those places that seems to belong to the wrong state. In this instance it feels like it should be part of Indiana but it’s actually part of Kentucky. It hardly seems like an island either although vestiges of its old topography continue to remain visible. Rather, the “island” has…
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Pronounced HOW?!?
A comment caught my attention recently on my Mainly Marathons article. “Mr. Burns” (hopefully not this one) noticed that one of the towns I mentioned was Ulysses, Kansas. He wrote, “Oh, and if you go, be sure to pronounce Ulysses as “You-liss-us”, never as “You-liss-eez”. The latter pronunciation peeves the locals.“ That’s good to know.…
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Mainly Marathons
I always have some kind of weird geography-related scheme bubbling in the back of my mind. I’m constantly on the search for creative ideas for new places to visit. So I have one brewing at the moment — don’t know if it will actually happen — although the potential is there and I’m considering the…
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Shortest 48
Today I’m fortunate enough to present a guest article from Jon Persky. Jon is a frequent contributor to the Twelve Mile Circle with a long history of insightful comments. He also inspired the popular Counting Border Crossings article a couple of years ago. In other words, Jon is an aficionado of geo-oddities of the highest…
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Connecticut Extremes: Are We There Yet?
It’s been a protracted series of Extreme Connecticut geography articles and you’re probably growing a little weary of them by now. I was in a similar position somewhere around this same point during our long and busy adventure. Nonetheless, nobody had ever visited the state’s four cardinal extremities in a single day before. We were…
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Connecticut Extremes: Water, Water Everywhere
Having survived the highpoint-tripoint humidity challenge earlier that morning, Steve of CTMQ led Scott of The Scenic Drive and myself to the next set of Connecticut geography extremes. It eventually dawned on us that they almost all involved water in some manner. The first attraction, Connecticut’s highest elevated pond, appeared by the roadside just a…