Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Islands and Cape, Part 3 (Lighthouse Crazy)

    Longtime readers of Twelve Mile Circle already know that I have a thing for lighthouses among numerous other counting-related quirks. I might have gone overboard on the recent trip to Cape Cod, however. That wasn’t my intent. It seemed as if lighthouses appeared every time I turned around, and the next thing I knew I’d…

  • Islands and Cape, Part 2 (Momentous History)

    Coastal Massachusetts had plenty of history before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620. Native Americans long lived there. Even other Europeans explored the area. Nonetheless it was the Pilgrims we all remembered from our elementary school curriculum and a lifetime of Thanksgiving holidays. So that’s where I began. I’d been wanting to go…

  • Islands and Cape, Part 1 (Seacoast Scenes)

    It seemed like I was on the road just yesterday and here I was back out in the wilds once again. This time my wife and I were celebrating a round-numbered wedding anniversary so we headed up to coastal Massachusetts and Rhode Island. I’d been to Boston many times before, however I’d never traveled along…

  • You Complete Me

    Washington and Idaho seemed to have a little bit of a romance going on with a couple of their towns. Their names could stand alone, however they paired rather nicely in the form of meaningful symmetry. Those names weren’t coincidental either. They were completely intentional. New and Old First came the curious case of Newport,…

  • Nimby Lane

    Twelve Mile Circle has an international audience so I’m never sure whether a term that’s part of my lexicon translates geographically. Many readers probably know the term NIMBY. For the rest of you, and particularly the foreign-language readers, NIMBY is an acronym for “Not In My Back Yard.” As defined by Dictionary.com NIMBY is… “…used…

  • All In a Name

    I continued to comb through my long backlog of article ideas and I found a few more possibilities, dusted off the cobwebs, and tried to assemble them into themes. One seemed to be a twist on a topic I’ve covered several times before, of towns with names more commonly associated with completely different places. Iowa…

  • Reader Mailbag 2

    Every once in awhile I receive an overwhelming number of excellent finds from the Twelve Mile Circle community. Last time I called the collection “Reader Mailbag.” I simply tacked the number 2 onto that older title in a nod to my lack of creativity for the current installment. To be considered for the Reader Mailbag…

  • Great Allegheny Passage, Day 4 (Meyersdale to Cumberland)

    The final day, like the end of all great adventures, was bittersweet. Nobody wanted to stop and yet we all had our lives to get back to and our responsibilities awaiting us that needed attention the next day. Most of the day’s ride would fly noticeably downhill. All of the gradual elevation we’d earned over…

  • Great Allegheny Passage, Day 3 (Ohiopyle to Meyersdale)

    We pushed deeper into the trip, halfway done as we pedaled out of Ohiopyle on the morning of the third day. We intended to cover the same distance as the previous day, a little more than forty miles, although we’d gain a thousand feet of elevation while reaching the town with the highest altitude along…

  • Great Allegheny Passage, Day 2 (West Newton to Ohiopyle)

    The second day of biking on the Great Allegheny Passage may have been my favorite. The rain lifted overnight and conditions improved with lightly cloudy skies, neither too hot nor too cool. Scenery changed from rust belt chic to thick forest hugging a scenic whitewater river. It was our first complete day of biking without…

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…