Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Terrain

  • Highest and Lowest, Oh So Close

    California contains both the highest and lowest elevations of the continental United States. Well, the “Lower 48” more precisely. Astoundingly, they are less than 88 miles (142 kilometers) apart with an elevation change approaching 15,000 feet. Mount Whitney is the California Highpoint at 14,494 feet (4,418 meters) above sea level. It crowns the mighty Sierra…

  • The Grassy Knoll

    This small hillside marks perhaps the most controversial landscaping feature in modern United States history. It has been linked inextricably with shadowy figures and sinister secrets. It is the infamous Grassy Knoll. President John F. Kennedy rode directly past this spot when gunfire ended his life on November 23, 1963. Depending on the evidence one…

  • Antietam Topography

    I crossed the Potomac River on my way back from Shepherdstown, West Virginia, and drove into Sharpsburg, Maryland a few miles later, the site of the Battle of Antietam. I didn’t have a great deal of time for my visit but I was still able to stop at a few favorite spots within this well-known…

  • Slug Lines

    Geography can influence social behavior and that’s the case with slug lines. This article has nothing to do with gastropods. Rather it’s a commuting method originating organically without any type of government involvement or sanction in the Washington, DC area. Since then it has also spread to other cities. It’s an efficient arrangement that matches…

  • John Hardeman Walker’s Bootheel

    I sometimes wonder about unusually-shaped geopolitical boundaries. Sometimes I find it’s due to specific geographic features as with The Gambia. Other times it arises from territorial clashes as with the Temburong exclave of Brunei Darussalam. Generally speaking, the stranger the shape the better the story. So I got to wondering about the Missouri Bootheel. That’s…

  • Lazy Blue Ridge Afternoon

    Over the weekend we traveled down the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It forms part of an ancient backbone, the Appalachian chain abutting central Virginia. As the crow flies, it wasn’t too far from Shenandoah National Park’s Swift Run Gap and Skyline Drive. We were guest on private land so I won’t give…

  • GPS and Genealogy – Arlington National Cemetery

    People’s willingness to share is one of the wonderful aspects of genealogy. A reader contacted me recently to provide further information about a common tangential ancestor — one not directly related to either of us but who had married into the larger family of Howder descendants — and for whom I’d had only the sketchiest…

  • Lake Delton is Gone

    NOTE: This entry was written in JUNE 2008, recording a historical event as it unfolded. It does not represent conditions at Lake Delton today. Lake Delton, the 267 acre lake shown on this map ceased to exist on June 9, 2008. This, the crown jewel of the Wisconsin Dells, roared down the Wisconsin River in…

  • Wisconsin Floods

    NOTE: This entry was written in JUNE 2008, recording a historical event as it unfolded. It does not represent conditions today. The weather has been unusual, and not in the way that Twelve Mile Circle normally appreciates. Awhile ago I posted a story about a water shortage in the southeastern part of the United States…

  • Unusual Goes Very Local, Part I

    Twelve Mile Circle is an appreciation of unusual places. However, they don’t have to be famous to be noteworthy. Every town has at least one unusual place, maybe more. Perhaps even your own hometown has a few. There is a spot in Arlington County, Virginia where a contiguous road called “North 26th Street” changes names.…