Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Geographically Coded Plates

    Recently I spotted an automobile with a Nebraska license plate, or more properly a “vehicle registration plate” I suppose. That wasn’t an everyday occurrence here in the Mid-Atlantic more than 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometres) from that Midwestern state. Often I’ve wondered what would bring a driver such a long distance from his home after I’ve…

  • Highway to Park

    A park near my home sits above an interstate highway leading into Washington, DC. Here, builders tucked the roadway into a little valley leading downhill towards the Potomac River and put a concrete lid above it. Drivers on Interstate 66 enter a tunnel briefly before returning to daylight and crossing the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge into…

  • Bridges of Frederick County

    First came a book, then a movie called “The Bridges of Madison County.” It took place in Iowa and the title referenced the many covered bridges common to the area. Apparently the plot involved a love affair or so I’ve inferred from summaries. I neither read the novel nor saw the film because I never…

  • Where They Lived as Children

    My recent trip to western North Carolina was like the gift that kept on giving for Twelve Mile Circle article ideas. Sadly I’ve reached the end of the line on that thread so this will be the last article that contains a connection to that earlier adventure. As noted in a prior installment, I enjoyed…

  • More Ancient Rivers

    The readers of Twelve Mile Circle seemed to anticipate where this conversation might head when I wrote about the advanced age of the French Broad River recently. I’d actually intended to write a single article about really old rivers. Then I had to split it when it got too wordy. Naturally I’d seen that same…

  • Ancient River

    The recent Twelve Mile Circle journey to western North Carolina included one of my favorite activities, whitewater rafting. The boys were finally old enough to join us although we still kept it pretty easy on them. So we stuck primarily to a series of Class II and Class III rapids (moderate to intermediate). This made…

  • Of Of

    Mouth of Wilson. I used it as a waypoint during my recent county counting quest. Otherwise I put it out of mind as I drove through an expansive rural corner of Virginia. It came to mind again a little later. I passed a sign for another town about an hour farther north and east, Meadows…

  • Western North Carolina, Part 6 (County Counting Adventures)

    Each Twelve Mile Circle journey has its own specific objectives. The western North Carolina adventure focused heavily on the burgeoning craft brewing scene. Collectively they also share common objectives, principally the pursuit of geo-oddities along with opportunities to pad my county counting totals. I thought I did well. I adding eighteen new counties with fourteen…

  • Western North Carolina, Part 5 (Exclamation Point)

    Twelve Mile Circle faced a bit of a geographic dilemma in western North Carolina. An issue began to appear towards the end of the week. Indeed, I might risk a doughnut hole county if I wasn’t careful. That condition would occur if I counted a bunch of contiguous counties and then left one in the…

  • Western North Carolina, Part 4 (Beer Tourism)

    Originally we’d hoped to travel north to the Thousand Islands region of New York. Unfortunately we waited too long to make our plans and couldn’t find anywhere decent to stay. Anyway, I quickly shifted my thoughts to Asheville, North Carolina, a place that had been on my mind for quite awhile. It combined an abundance…

Latest Comments

  1. The British flag continues to fly at Roche Harbor, a couple miles north of English Camp.

  3. Been there Once for a few years. In 76 &77. Ran cooperative store. Even though it was very isolated It…

  4. As an Alaskan I always wondered why Interstates were a big deal. From my point of view a road went…