Tag: North Carolina
-
Cape Hatteras Light
Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Buxton, North Carolina (March 2012) The Cape Hatteras Light dominates the surrounding terrain. Unquestionably it serves as the most well-known lighthouse along the mid-Atlantic and maybe the nation. The black-and-white spiral paint job beckons tourists down the spine of the Outer Banks. It takes more than an hour of driving south…
-
Bodie Island Light Station
Cape Hatteras National SeashoreNags Head, North Carolina (March 2012) Bodie Island Light Station The lighthouse on Bodie Island (pronounced “Body” after an early family of the same name) doesn’t have quite the same level of fame or recognition as its cousin on Cape Hatteras but it’s certainly no less important. All of the lights along…
-
Fort Raleigh National Historic Site
Roanoke Island, North Carolina (March 2012) We drove onto Roanoke Island from Nags Head. This is the largest island within the Sounds found between the backside of the North Carolina barrier islands and the mainland. Albemarle Sound is to the north, Pamlico Sound to the south, with the much smaller Croatan Sound to the west…
-
Hatteras-Ocracoke Ferry
Hatteras Island to Ocracoke Island, North Carolina (March 2012) We drove down 75 miles of North Carolina’s Route 12, the Beach Road, along the spine of the Outer Banks. This was a long slog even during the winter when the length of highway was blessedly free of tourist traffic. Patience is a virtue. It took…
-
Duck
Several years ago, and I don’t recall exactly when, I wrote an entire Twelve Mile Circle article without using a single Google tool. I found it incredibly frustrating, nearly impossible. The article got buried somewhere in the archive and I don’t remember the title. Just trust me. I didn’t enjoy it. Apparently I didn’t learn…
-
Triangle
With a name like Triangle, I expected some actual triangles. I pondered that possibility as I sat on Interstate 95 during heavy weekend traffic, returning from an overnight trip to Richmond. I found plenty of time to consider that notion too as I traveled through Triangle on the interminably slow route on a notoriously congested…
-
Noble Layers
Washington State provided a nice example of presidential layering down to a county, a community and ultimately to a body of water. I couldn’t find any better example. However, I wondered whether I might be able to do something similar on a different tack. Many eastern states reflected another set of leaders, the noble men…
-
On Canals
In Latin, the word canna means reed, the root of canalis meaning “water pipe, groove, [or] channel.” The French language retained this term as it evolved from Latin, and the English language adopted it to describe a pipe for transporting liquid. This transformed to its modern English usage by the Seventeenth Century to represent an…
-
Literal Roads to Nowhere
Nowhere makes occasional appearances on Twelve Mile Circle. I guess I liked the underlying concept of a place of nowhere, which by definition had to be somewhere. So I mined this topic pretty hard with articles like Middle of Nowhere and X to Nowhere. I referenced it more recently in the latest Odds and Ends…
-
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…