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I enjoy county counting but it becomes increasingly difficult to reach new counties as my count increases. That’s why I began a sub-variant involving overnight counties. You see it counts “more” by my arbitrary rules if I spend an entire night there instead of simply passing through. That’s because it involves a tangible financial commitment, […] The post Culpeper Co., Virginia appeared first on Twelve Mile Circle - An Appreciation of Unusual Places.
If you’re driving along Indiana’s portion of Interstate 69, say from Evansville to Bloomington, you are going to cross a Time Zone boundary. It happens between Mile Markers 37.5 and 39.0, about forty minutes north of Evansville at normal highway speeds. But please note that the situation gets genuinely weird as you cross between zones […] The post Indiana I-69 Time Zone Crossing appeared first on Twelve Mile Circle - An Appreciation of Unusual Places.
It seemed strange to fixate on a single tree for more than a decade but that’s exactly what happened. I notice it a few weeks every autumn and then quickly forget about it for another year. That all started sometime around 2013 when I began to ride a stretch of the Capital Crescent Trail along […] The post Osage Orange appeared first on Twelve Mile Circle - An Appreciation of Unusual Places.
I hinted at ulterior motives in the last article about my long weekend in Denver. I didn’t travel all the way out there just to casually tour around. Indeed, I had a very specific purpose in mind — checking off a bucket list item in fact — attending the Great American Beer Festival. The Biggest […] The post Great American Beer Festival (and More) appeared first on Twelve Mile Circle - An Appreciation of Unusual Places.
I’ve been traveling a lot lately. It feels like I just got back from the Pacific Northwest, and before that England, and then I’m heading right back out the door again. This should do it for awhile though; I need some rest. But this trip was a little different because I was there for some […] The post Broomfield and Denver Weekend appeared first on Twelve Mile Circle - An Appreciation of Unusual Places.
More in cartography
Submitted by Nick, who says: Hi Cameron. I live in Chicago and our commuter rail Metra is considering rebranding its lines and recently released two proposals. I thought you and your readers might enjoy reviewing them. The announcement, proposed designs, and link to a survey are here. The proposed designs are available in a PDF […]
Here’s how you can make a map inspired by the glorious collaboration of geologist Marie Tharp and landscape painter Heinrich Berann. We’ll use ArcGIS Pro (injected with a special terrain toolbox provided by cartographer, author, and public figure Ken Field), its amazing raster functions and blend modes, and luscious bathymetry data from GEBCO. Let’s dive in! 0:00 a brief …
Last year I was in Brattleboro, Vermont and saw an interesting map on display. It is part of the Brattleboro Words Project. The project “connects community members to the Brattleboro area’s unique history, the art of audio storytelling - and each other” through audio pieces, maps and a GPS app that leads listeners on an audio journey of local people and places. There are two maps; a city (above) and regional map. They can be downloaded here. Indigenous Abenaki names are given equal weight on the map. Examples include the town name, Wantastegok and the river Kwenitekw. Here is a picture zoomed into downtown to appreciate the handmade details. The regional map features portraits featuring notable people with local ties such as Rudyard Kipling, Saul Bellow and Daisy Turner. Here is the Brattleboro area. The process of creating these murals and maps is very interesting. It started with 10 clay landscape mural tiles, about 12 lbs each, 16"x16". They were hand carved by Natalie Blake Studios lead designer Cynthia Parker-Houghton. She was nice enough to share some details of the creation process: “I took the information for the rivers off a Google Map, which I then re-oriented and then distorted distorted to give a birds eye view. So it was as if seen from the top of Mount Wantasticuit on the NewHampshire side of the Connecticut River gazing out West over Brattleboro and the surrounding region. "I had this map printed out large at a print shop and then used it as a template to lay out the clay forms to represent the topography of the mountains. After this I draped square slabs of clay over the forms. These slabs then dried for a few days and then could be lifted to remove the clay mountain forms and also the paper templates. I believe I had a second set of paper templates printed which were slightly smaller to adjust for the clay shrinkage. I used this second paper template to mark out the rivers. I did this by drawing over the river lines with a pen which pressed through the paper to leave marks on the clay. "Once the marks were made I removed the paper template and carved the details of the map. I carved away the iron oxide slip that had been painted over the entire surface. Wherever I carved it revealed the white clay. After we bisque fired the tiles, we used an industrial sprayer to apply the transparent glaze colors over the black and white image. We then fired it for a second time to a high temperature.” Here are the tiles seen hanging at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center. The map was created from photographs of the mural with text added digitally. Here is a video if you want to dig more into the details of the creation process. Brattleboro Words is a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities. They will be revamping the map for 2026 when the whole Trail will be featured on the new Amtrak station outside track facing side of building. The project also has a podcast - https://brattleboro-words-trail-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/ (available free all formats Apple, Spotify etc...) https://brattleborowords.org
