Tag: Michigan
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Beery Places
It began as I discovered Beery Reservoir in northeastern Montana appearing on my screen (map). For once I decided to avoid overthinking the reference and have fun with it while wondering how awesome it would be to have a reservoir of beer. Don’t expect a lot of intellectual curiosity or historical background today, just beer-themed…
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Ampersand
One of the sources I consulted for Follow the Letter referenced a town with an alphabetical street grid with one extra street. They named the street Ampersand instead of beginning a new sequence, although technically Ampersand did begin with an A as long as it wasn’t explicitly rendered as “&” on the street sign. I’ll…
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Deadly Fog
I was thinking recently about a huge multi-vehicle accident that happened in Virginia a few months ago. That one involved 77 vehicles in thick fog. Of course it was a terrible tragedy that I wouldn’t wish on anybody. It also made me wonder whether it was the worst possible, or whether there were others even…
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Comedy Duos
It may be reasonable to assume that most people have at least a passing familiarity with Abbott and Costello’s signature Who’s-on-First comedy routine, developed in the late 1930’s. I referenced a possible Who’s-on-First scenario recently in No Way! Way! thinking that most readers would understand the reference. It came from an era long before I…
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Triple Letter
An unwary visitor arriving on the Twelve Mile Circle through some random search once again provided fodder for an article topic. The query forwarded by search software said: “name of the county, state and cities starts with s?” Usually this means someone is trying to complete an online geography contest or perhaps an old-school crossword…
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Shortline
That’s shortline (with a “t”) not shoreline. The term describes very small railroads. I first became aware of shortlines a couple of years ago when we took a brief trip to Vermont during early Autumn. One of our activities included an excursion along the western bank of the Connecticut River. We took that trip on…
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Gephyrophobia
Gephyrophobia is a fear of bridges. People who experience this anxiety are gephyrophobiacs. I’ve known people with this fear to varying degrees although I didn’t realize it had an actual name until recently. I noticed a search engine query on Twelve Mile Circle from someone who appeared to be a gephyrophobiac. The person wanted to…
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Bridge Between Wisconsin and Michigan
My favorite inspiration, random Internet queries falling from the sky onto the Twelve Mile Circle via search engines, struck again recently. This time our anonymous explorer wanted to find more information about a bridge from Wisconsin to Michigan. The natural reflex would be to pull out a map… … and say to oneself, a bridge…
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But What’s the Meridian?
The definition of “meridian” sounds straight-forward enough. There are some ancillary definitions relating to greatest moments, highest achievements and such, plus one dealing with acupuncture. However, the one roughly analogous to longitude interests 12MC the most. From Dictionary.com: me·rid·i·an…(1.) Geography. (a.) a great circle of the earth passing through the poles and any given point…