The AARoads Blog

a bit of a diversion from our usual roads fare…

photo taken in rural San Diego County.

A trip to New Mexico, essentially following the Gila River all the way. Part features the first day, and the morning of the second – driving from San Diego to Lake Roberts, NM.

Adventures in terrible light-post placement. There are only two known 1957-spec interstate shields in Arizona. (The other one is on this exact gantry, facing the other direction.)

Extremely pointy flower in morning light. Highway 90 between Lordsburg and Silver City, New Mexico.

Heading north from Silver City on state highway 15.

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the second batch of photos from the trip ScottB and I took to Mariposa, in the western Sierra foothills. On this day, we leave the town and head southwards, on 49 and then various county roads, before spurring off on 168 into the mountains a while.

Just a little stream, filled with floating vegetation, by the side of a county road just a mile or two from highway 41.

An oddly shaped tree. We find it at Shaver Lake, on highway 168.

It is definitely waterfall season. This one is beside old highway 168, which leads to Big Creek.

This pair of signs dates to 1953. Some of the last white porcelain guide signs left in the state! I actually found these about a year ago on a trip with Andy, but when we got there it was night, so I had to come back for a daytime shot.

This river feeds from the waterfalls into Huntington Lake.

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Photos from last weekend! I took a trip with ScottB to the town of Mariposa, on highway 49, in the western Sierra foothills. We explored old bridges and wildflowers and green hills and what have you, and a grand old time was had by all.

here is the first day.

By the side of a road called simply “Old Highway”. It is to the southwest of Mariposa, and branches off 140. Whether it is an old 140 alignment or not, no one knows (it isn’t 140 on my 1942 map). In any case, it is well worth driving.

“mariposa” is Spanish for “butterfly” – and here we find an example of one downtown!

A standard representative example of California’s official state flower.

Old sign find of the day. This FAS (Federal Aid Secondary) gantry dates to 1947. The Federal Aid program was used to build infrastructure like roadways and bridges, and the signs date to as far back as 1929, and as recently as the 1960s.

The suspension bridge across the Merced River. Just outside of Yosemite. While this is next to highway 140, it is not an old 140 alignment or anything – it’s just a bridge that leads to a campground.

Highway 49 north of Mariposa crosses the Merced River, after descending sharply down from the mountains.

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at long last, I am back, with some photos for everyone … highway signs which showed up at Roy Reed’s gas and oil collectible swap meet, and then some scenery from the subsequent days, when I found I had some time on my hands and did a quick trip up to the Bay Area and Sacramento. enjoy!

This poor guide sign has been cut into three pieces – and one is missing. But still, this is the only ACSC diamond I have ever seen which mentions “Arizona State Highway” and, even more spectacularly, the Grand Canyon! Certainly unique.

After Roy’s, we explore many roads – not all of which go to any particular place.

Well, what do we have here? Oh, just the only known surviving cateyed sign in California! This stop sign dates to between 1934 and 1942, and is the first cateyed sign anyone’s seen since the mid-1990s. A miracle that it would survive… and it does!

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The third day of the winter trip to Nevada. This set features exclusively California, as I headed home, down the Central Valley from Redding.

This old bridge can be found on US-99 in Red Bluff. Plenty of 1920s – and even older – bridges may be found along the historic route.

An original I-580 shield. The banners are brand new, but that gantry is specifically designed to hold two route markers: I-580, and US-50! This one is out near Tracy, where US-50 hasn’t run since 1971.

Pastels after dark. Okay, not quite so – just before dark, with a 10-stop long-exposure filter. Two minutes of total light, off the overpass looking south at highway 132.

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the second day of my Utah/Nevada/California trip – this time focusing almost exclusively on Nevada, except for at the end of the day, where we cross into California, and are nearly buried alive in snow. On this day, we cover US-50 in Nevada (the Lincoln Highway), and on the next day we head to California and drive down I-5 through the Central Valley.

About 30 miles west of Ely, Nevada – a fishy sunrise. I took two photos with my fisheye lens, and converted to rectilinear and stitched them together, resulting in what is about a 165 degree field of view! The large version of this image is nearly 11000 pixels wide.

(by the way, to convert the 10.5mm Nikon DX fisheye to rectilinear, use 142 degrees horizontal and 98 degrees vertical coverage. I use Panotools to do the remapping, which lets me enter these two constants directly – your methods may vary.)

There are, as far as I found, seven Lincoln Highway concrete posts in the state of Nevada. They were all put up in 1928. This is the only one that, as far as I can tell, is in its original location, as opposed to being moved by the state of Nevada in the intervening years.

Based on some new information I just received – this Lincoln post was put up in the mid-1980s. There are subtle differences between the original 1928s and a bunch that were made in the 80s when the highway’s revival began. I alas was not looking for these differences, so I do not know if any of the 7 posts I found were 1928s.

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Over the holiday weekend, I took a trip that concentrated heavily on US-50 from I-15 in Utah to Carson City. This batch barely gets us there, as we head up the US-91 corridor (approximately) from San Diego to Utah, and then turn west, stopping in Ely, Nevada for the night.

those that click on the large versions of the photos may notice… new camera! Larger pictures for your enjoyment. When my D50 died at 99872 exposures, I upgraded to the D5000. This trip served to field-test it in a variety of conditions.

Pointy rocks and high clouds, by the side of the Kelso-Cima Road, which is a very old US-91 alignment. Before they built the road in the 30s that would be upgraded to I-15 in 1962, a somewhat more indirect highway followed the railroad between Cima and Kelso, and that was US-91.

US-50 in western Utah. 1am on a foggy night. As there was no place to pull over, I stopped the car in the middle of the road and set up the tripod next to it. No cars came in the six or seven minutes I was stopped. Indeed, no other vehicles between Hinckley, Utah and Majors Junction, Nevada – over 100 miles!

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The second batch of Death Valley photos. We wake up in Beatty, Nevada and then scour Death Valley for at least a little while before realizing that our vehicle is simply not up to the challenge presented by the terrain. Oh noes! We then run for dear life, as we notice the tire pressure slowly sinking, while Jeff’s plane is not catching itself.

Our first stop is the abandoned town of Rhyolite – just west of Beatty, this was once a mining town with a population of over 5000 people.

The sign find of the day: a 1949 historical marker, complete with the Auto Club of Southern California and the National Park Service logos. There are two: the other one is on the other side of the post. Interestingly, the post is much newer than the signs … someone must want to keep them here. We obliged by not borrowing them.

A bighorn sheep. A helpful park ranger pointed this one out, as we would’ve never noticed it high up on the cliff wall. In fact, he told us there were fourteen of them to be spotted!

Moonrise over the Panamint range.

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A trip that JeffS and I took to Death Valley this previous weekend. We rented a big old truck, and in strict accordance with our rental car policy, we did not under any circumstances drive on any dirt roads looking for old highway signs. Jeff even brought a metal detector – just in case we could dig something up.

Were we successful in finding old signs? Let’s find out!

Be sure to check out the large version of this picture. The dragonfly cooperatively held still for a good minute or so, and therefore I took over 100 pictures. This one is the sharpest!

Every once in a while, I can shoot a picture into the sun and get it to come out!

The last diamond sign. The Auto Club of Southern California put up these markers from 1906 to 1929, and this one has not been stolen simply because it is barely recognizable as anything more than an 18×18 inch pane of steel. Surrounding it are various empty gas cans and other artifacts.

We got to the sign well past dark. This is about a three-minute exposure under a quarter moon. The cloud illumination is provided by the city of Las Vegas; the foreground lighting is thanks to a flashlight.

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