Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Water

  • Mysterious Plum Island

    Plum Island sits off the northeast coast of Long Island, New York. Throughout the last two centuries it has vacillated between civilian and government use. Colonists began settling here in the late seventeenth and into the eighteenth centuries, and named it for the abundant native plum trees. British raiders bedeviled the island during the Revolutionary…

  • Bolivia’s Landlocked Navy

    Bolivia meets the definition of landlocked. Its South American neighbors, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, and Peru, completely surround it. There is no way for Bolivia to reach the sea without crossing through the territory of one of its neighbors. Yet, somewhat inexplicably, Bolivia has a robust Navy with upwards of 5,000 sailors. It’s not all…

  • USA Time Zone Anomalies, Part II

    I outlined a couple of odd time zone anomalies within the United States in Part I. So here I continue the effort with several more examples. While none of these are quite as extreme as the Idaho instance discussed in the last installment — although one comes pretty close — they all represent places where…

  • USA Time Zone Anomalies, Part I

    Matthew of the prullmw blog[1] is a regular reader and commentator on the Twelve Mile Circle. Recently he wondered whether I might have an interest in time zone boundaries. Indeed I do! Hopi and Navajo Anomalies I mentioned the whole Arizona, Navajo, Hopi complexity in my response, but I’d been unable to find a decent…

  • What Happened to the Handle?

    I spend a lot of my free-time reading, researching and writing online. Nonetheless, I freely admit to one guilty pleasure: I enjoy curling up with a daily newspaper at the end of each day. There’s something about the feel of paper, the ease of use, and the depth of coverage that makes me happy. The…

  • The Most Remote Town in Mainland Britain

    If you’re like me, maybe you’ve had a little too much of the Holidays, a little too much quality time with the in-laws. Perhaps now you’re ready for some solitude. It would need to be a quiet, out of the way place where nobody would think to look, but not so remote as to be…

  • Smallest Largest Provincial Island in Canada

    You read that right. Perhaps I can rephrase it better: Each Canadian Province or Territory has a largest island. When considering that list, which one is the smallest? Today’s totally trivial topic comes courtesy of the confluence of many competing thoughts that pinged around my mind lately: I’m “-est” fixated (you know, things ending in…

  • Naval Ensigns of U.S. States

    Many of the colonies that became the original 13 United States had their own navies during the Revolutionary War. Indeed, only New Jersey and Delaware did not. Individual colonies hastily cobbled together fleets as the conflict unfolded. With these, they hoped to defend American shores from a superior British fleet. States formally commissioner some of…

  • West Coast Sunrises over Water

    We’ve had fun watching the comments posted on my recent entry, East Coast Sunsets over Water. Matthew kicked things off when he wondered whether the opposite condition might exist. Does a West Coast sunrise ever happen over water? Scott Schrantz who has followed the Twelve Mile Circle for awhile, later solved the mystery by providing…

  • They Reversed the Chicago River

    What’s a growing city to do when its water supply is jeopardized by its own filth? If it’s Chicago and it’s the late 19th Century, they reverse the flow of an entire river system. In the process they purposely punctured a Continental Divide. I’m in Chicago this week so I wanted to make sure I…