Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Truckin’ Through California

    This has absolutely nothing to do with the Grateful Dead although they were indeed from California and noted for Truckin’. It is literally about trucks in California. However, feel free to listen to Truckin’ in the background if that would make you happy. So, it all started out more grandiosely. I recalled a particularly awful…

  • Just Keep Turning

    I think it’s time for another participatory article. The 12MC audience seems to its like little puzzles and challenges. I had to drive to a local shopping center a couple of miles from my home yesterday afternoon to pick up my wife. An Interstate Highway stood between the two locations, acting as a natural barrier,…

  • An Obscure Gettysburg

    This is the story of John Kennedy. No, not that John Kennedy! I’m referring to John Wright Kennedy who I guarantee that you know nothing about, nor should you. It’s about how a formative event in his life resulting in the naming of a town twenty years later. He was a farmer who underwent a…

  • Where is Spider-Man Today?

    The newspaper version of the Amazing Spider-Man today (February 5, 2013) has Peter Parker attached to the back of a moving van, hitching a ride to San Francisco . He’s recently left Las Vegas, and he’s just passed a road sign that reads “San Francisco 237 miles.” Obviously Peter is riding along an Interstate Highway.…

  • Practically Insignificant

    I was pondering the nature of individual U.S. counties recently as I was going through the somewhat tedious process to create my 100th meridian map. My mind began to wonder. There are urban counties, suburban counties and rural counties. Every once in awhile, however, there will be an individual county that has a size or…

  • 100th Meridian Counties

    The Intertubes wants to know and I’m happy to oblige. This is one of those occasional articles that regular 12MC readers may want to skip because it doesn’t involve much from an intellectual standpoint. For some reason I keep getting search engine queries about the 100th meridian west of Greenwich, specifically the list of United…

  • Atlantis Lite

    I’ve been thinking about towns submerged by reservoirs. I don’t know why that suddenly came to mind or why it fascinated me without prompting. It’s one of those things. This is also a topic that interests many other people apparently. They’ve written all sorts of definitive lists of underwater ghost towns. I won’t replicate those…

  • How Low Can it Go?

    I stumble across the most fascinating bits of information in unexpected places. It happened this time as I examined the unusually-wide median strip between the eastbound and westbound lanes of Interstate 8 in southern California. Then I learned of a nearby oddity further down the highway while reviewing various roadfan websites. Interstate 8 A motorist…

  • Mystery of the Mexican Quadripoint

    Does Mexico have a quadripoint? I’m not asking that as a trick question. Ideally this should have an easily verifiable solution. Either four Mexican states touch at a common spot — a quadripoint — or they do not. The answer however is considerably more elusive. I remain at a loss as I attempt to uncover…

  • Remarkable Sundials

    I started fixating on sundials after stumbling across the dueling Dodge City railroad time zone sundials during Kansas Mountain Time. Fortunately I don’t think I’ll reach a point where I’m compelled to compile a list and go out of my way to visit them (as I do with lighthouses, fortifications and breweries). However, I’d probably…

Latest Comments

  2. what is the total population that lives now in the land given back to Virginia should it be part of…

  5. Park ranger at Chalmette (New Orleans) Battlefield let me pull up the Union Jack 20 years ago. My dad would…