Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Geo-Oddities of Portland, Oregon

    Every once in awhile I’m honored to share content or even an entire guest post written by a loyal Twelve Mile Circle reader. We are very lucky today. Marc Alifanz contributes his expert knowledge of Geo-oddities in Portland, Oregon. Marc is an experienced blogger both in his professional and personal life and as he demonstrates…

  • Potomac in Oregon

    Is there a Potomac River in Oregon? I’m only aware of the one that forms a boundary between Virginia and Maryland/Washington, DC and out to West Virginia. However, I’ve been receiving a slow but steady trickle of search engine queries on the topic for the last several weeks. Maybe I’m missing something. Is there a…

  • 12 Mile Circ… no wait, 16!

    [UPDATE: 16 Mile Brewing Company CLOSED in September 2018] Look at the bottle my wife brought home from the grocery store a few days ago. Can you see the name of the brewery on the bottle? That’s the 16 Mile Brewing Company. More importantly, the brewery is located in Delaware. Now, I’ve heard of a…

  • Historic Fort Lincoln

    Most of you will probably want to skip down a bit and start reading at the map. Longtime readers may remember when I went down to Texas for my grandmother’s 100th birthday party. Well, sorrowfully Bernice Sylvester McGaughy passed away a few days ago. She was 102 years old and in good health both physically…

  • Tourist Options During a Government Shutdown

    The benefit or the curse of living in the Washington, DC area — and the jury is still out on that call — is that national and international news for everyone else is our local news. Currently we can’t escape the theatrics of yet another impending government shutdown. Here’s to hoping that the immature politicians…

  • What’s “Almost Heaven?”

    We examined a song containing a blatant geographic inaccuracy in a recent article, “In Them Old Cotton Fields.” I left a hint for readers when I stated that I too took offense at a song with an equally irritating error, one having to do with the Mountain State. Many of you probably knew the answer…

  • Car Talk State Name Answer

    I’m not a listener of the Car Talk radio show. However, apparently they do a Puzzler each week and people try to send them the correct answer by email. I know this because my website gets hammered by Google searches anytime they deal with geographic trivia. I guess there aren’t many geo-oddity sites on the…

  • In Them Old Cotton Fields

    Little did reader Ian Dunbar realize that he struck a nerve when he commented on the Bordersplit article. It had nothing to do with his fine words or sentiment. I was in total agreement. Glaring geographical errors in songs grate on my nerves too. My nemesis happens to be a completely different musical composition but…

  • It Counts but It’s Pitiful

    We’ve had a lively discussion in the comments in relation to the “I’ve Barely Been There” article. I described the official 12MC Rules in the original article: if I touch the geographic area, no matter how briefly, I count it as a visit. I defined “touch” as anything more than flying over it. One doesn’t…

  • I’ve Barely Been There

    I’ve been to all of the 50 United States as is true with several others of you who read Twelve Mile Circle regularly. In fact, that’s what got me started on the strange hobby of County Counting. I ran out of things to count so I had to break the individual states into their sub-units…

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…