Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • District Bridge Sculptures

    I decided to take a bit of a departure today. I’ll focus more attention on images and dive even farther into hyper-local coverage. This may interest a smaller slice of the usual 12MC audience. I took the kids to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo recently and decided to take the Memorial Bridge across the Potomac River…

  • Portage USA

    The U.S. government shutdown ended last week and I forgot that I still had one piece of unfinished business remaining. The USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) came back online so I was ready to go. I focused on Canadian portages previously, and I had a great time doing that by the way. Now I…

  • Capital Highpoints

    I once climbed to the top of the not-too-impressive highpoint of the District of Columbia. It’s even subway accessible, and you know I’m all about easy highpointing. The District highpoint is kind-of equivalent to a state highpoint — some lists include it and others do not — and that was a convenient loophole to add…

  • Middle of Nowhere

    I once searched for and found the Center of the Universe. Never mind that there were plenty of other claimants, I found the one true center naturally because the Intertubes confirmed it and of course that made it unquestionably true. It was much more difficult to find the middle of nowhere. First one must discover…

  • Georgia Capitals

    I have a soft spot for promising places now obscured. They might have been famous if history had unfolded just a little bit differently. Maybe not everyone thinks that way. Hopefully the topic appeals to a few of you anyway because that’s what this article offers. I think it was about a year ago that…

  • Certainly Not Austin

    Austin is the vibrant capital city of Texas with nearly two million people in its greater metropolitan area. It features a bustling economy and a thriving music scene. Austinville in Virginia, well, it doesn’t have any of that. It’s a nondescript, unincorporated Appalachian village with only 2,500 residence in its entire zip code. Yet, as…

  • Extreme Differences of Extremes

    I was encouraged to see that I wasn’t the only person fascinated by weather extremes in So Hot, So Cold. Reader “zxo” had been thinking along similar lines a few months ago and created a series of related maps. One of those compared the differences between the highest and lowest temperatures recorded in each state.…

  • So Hot, So Cold

    The weather near my home caught my attention recently. We went straight from middle of summer directly into late Autumn overnight. Essentially we experienced unseasonably hot and sunny and then instant cold and rainy. We never seemed to get our typically wonderful October weather that we deserved. So that put me in a mood to…

  • Portage in Canada

    The United States Geological Survey is a Federal government agency. It has been impacted by the government budget impasse that exists as I write this article in October 2013. Guess what? It also means that the Geographical Names Information System was turned off. Only websites “necessary to protect lives and property” are running at the…

  • Chicago-New York Electric Air Line

    I have a fairly neutral opinion about trains and railroads, and readers probably wouldn’t confuse me with a railfan. I never really thought about them much, honestly. Sure, I’ve taken rides on scenic railroads once or twice and related geo-oddities make it onto 12MC occasionally. However, that’s generally coincidental. I’m starting to grow more fond…

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  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…