photo taken in rural San Diego County.

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.

San Diego. Highway 52 is now open from 125 to 67.

Caltrans manages to sneak in a 1950s (!) sign layout, with Junction spelled out in mixed case to accompany a route shield.

Early experiment in non-porcelain signage. This sign, on I-8, dates to 1962, and the 67 shield covers up a white one. Individually riveted non-reflective letters onto a green background. The reflectors were added sometime in the 1970s, when older non-reflective signs got the “bag of buttons and a bucket of glue” treatment.

Interstate 8 heads east towards Imperial County.

If I recall correctly, the “your papers, please” checkpoint was closed.

The other 1957-spec I-8 shield. Same intersection, but heading southbound.

They may very well have closed this station permanently. If so, this is one button copy sign which I won’t miss when it vanishes.

Telegraph Pass, just east of Yuma. The two carriageways of I-8 separate, and in fact the westbound lanes cross over the eastbound ones for a short while.

Rarely seen narrow Clearview. A new sign since the last time I came through here, around November 2010.

The very last I-8 reassurance marker, paired with a rarely seen (but perfectly sensible) 36″ trailblazer for I-10.

Park Link Drive – a connector between I-10 and AZ-79 which lets us avoid Tucson. It is shown on few maps, but is a perfectly serviceable paved road.

Spot the old alignment. We’re near the Gila River now; AZ-77 follows it.

Time to turn around.

Back down the hill we go.

The town of Winkelman has seen better days. Yes, that is a noose hanging down.

Lordsburg, next morning. The signs are relatively new, but the gantry itself dates to the 1950s.

Another view of the same extremely pointy flower.

Every county in New Mexico seems to have a different route numbering scheme. Grant has hyphenated numbers.

A typical New Mexico historic marker.

US-80 hasn’t run through New Mexico since 1991, but historic markers are always the last to be updated.

A 1960s (or maybe even 1950s!) cheap New Mexico sign. To save money, only the bottom half of the sign was covered in reflective Scotchlite!

The missing sign is an 18×18 New Mexico route 15 marker. Pinos Altos.

This time, a 24″ shield and an arrow are both missing.

The end of the alternate route. It isn’t signed from 15.

Further up highway 15.

Our first picture of the Gila River itself. (Finally!)

What is the nature of this ominous haze? We’ll leave off with this photo. Next up, Gila Cliff Dwellings!

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.

Found in a small garden along the sidewalk in downtown Mariposa is this ridiculously bright “the colors are melting” flower.

Giant Plastic Bear sees through space-time continua that you didn’t even know existed.

Some yellow flowers beside highway 49.

A new bridge across the Chowchilla River. The old road can be seen in the valley below.

The old road must cross the river somewhere, too. This bridge looks very 1920s – and certainly very substandard, which is why it was replaced sometime in the 1970s.

And a view of the river, from the deck of the old bridge.

New and old bridges.

Further flowers that defy identification.

I don’t remember where this waterfall was, but “by the side of 49″ is a good guess. How does one get motion-blurred shots like this? One holds the camera [i]very still[/i]. It’s about a 1 second exposure.

A reflecting lake, by the side of an old 49 alignment.

An abandoned bridge on a county road near North Fork. They dismantled the approaches. Apparently, it was the only way to be sure.

Looking back east for a moment. We’re about to start 168, but it’s still county roads – in varying states of preservation! – for now.

Same vegetation-filled stream, opposite direction.

mmm… vegetation.

Some vegatation of the above-ground kind.

One last one, then it’s time for 168.

168 starts going up rather quickly.

Gas is expensive on this little spur route to nowhere.

At Shaver Lake. This duck has just come in for a landing.

Iron pyrite – the bane of gold panners everywhere – washes up on the shore of the lake.

The dam. Shaver Lake, as well as several others in the area, are all artificially created to provide hydroelectric power.

The view from on top of the dam.

This sign probably dates back to when the dam and lake were built in 1927.

Everyone’s favorite Bear 168 sign. Well, Scott’s favorite, anyway. We brought it along and put it up on an unused post on highway 168. (And yes, we took it with us afterward!)

Old 168 heading up to Big Creek.

Another one of 168′s waterfalls.

Sometimes, the water needs to come down the hill in a more controlled manner. To that end, these huge pipes were installed.

The backs of the old white guide signs. Invariably, one gets better light for the back than the front. This is a basic fact of going out to photograph things – one gets there at the wrong time of day!

A flowering tree, just above the two signs.

This old speed limit sign is in the same general area.

And one going the other direction.

This route marker appears to be missing something.

The river flows down towards Huntington Lake.

The source of the river. Everything’s one large hydroelectric complex.

One last photo, showing the perils of shooting into the sun. I turned this one nearly black and white.

that’s all, folks! next up … photos from some other trip! I’ve only got a backlog of 30,000 photos or so!

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.

How to lose business. The whole point of having a card reader at the pump is to avoid having to walk back and forth, and attempt to figure out how much gas will fill the tank before actually filling it. You are a gas station in the central valley, not Tiffany’s… you do not have the cachet by which you are permitted to make the customer jump through hoops!

Where did this wacky “3″ come from?

Typical western Sierra foothills scene. This is one of the roads that branches off state highway 180 in the Kings Canyon area.

Our first wildflower patch of the morning, along the side of highway 245 near the awesomely named town of Badger.

Random peacock farm is random.

This sign appears to have fallen off its perch.

To the north of Old Highway.

The old bridge from which the previous photo was taken.

Plenty of old bridges on this road!

California at its greenest.

Our first old sign of the day. We’ve reached the town of Mariposa, where this 1959 historic marker greets us.

Make way for ducklings.

A batch of flowers which shall remain unidentified.

A white variety.

Only Kevin will appreciate this photo. It is downtown Mariposa, by the way.

Giant Plastic Bear holds the key to the many secrets of the universe.

Our first trip to the bridge across the Merced River is in mid-afternoon.

Some red flowering plants, on the way down to the bridge.

Spring is waterfall season, as the snow melts from the tops of the mountains. This is a long exposure with a 10-stop slowdown filter, explaining how I could get blurred water in the middle of the day.

Silhouette bird is a direct result of shooting right into the sun.

Scott calls this one a “purple star”.

And he wonders why I call it “pointy”.

The FAS gantry in front of the bridge that it identifies.

The infrequently seen large version of the California scenic route marker.

Purple flowers. Any species identification on all my photos is greatly appreciated! (Official state flowers and all!)

This bridge is just off to the side of highway 140: it begins the road which leads to the town of Darrah, up in the mountains.

Following the Merced River on 140. We turn around approximately here, having no desire to pay $25 to head into Yosemite when that is not the area we specifically wish to explore.

And we’re back at the 49 bridge. I decided this photo was better in black and white, with the faux 1945 look.

and that’s all for the first day. next up: the second day! more wildflowers… more waterfalls… and even some snow!

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!

A nice early 1980s wood interstate shield from Arizona.

A porcelain interstate marker. California, 1970, intended to be affixed to a green guide sign.

A 1920s or 1930s Oklahoma state route marker.

Route 66 before it was route 66. Foothill Boulevard in Pasadena became US-66 in 1926. This sign dates to 1916 or so, and traces the route between San Bernardino and Los Angeles.

Rectangular guide signs with an inverse-text line at the top, like this 1937-1940 example, are quite a difficult find. I know of just this one, and one other.

This guide sign from the Death Valley Area dates to 1929-1934.

This Northern California guide sign dates to 1913-14, and is from the first run of the yellow diamonds. No distances, just destinations, marks it as a very early sign. It was posted on what would become US Route 101 in 1926.

Leaving Roy’s. Don’t ask why this gantry has green banners and arrow. I blame the city of Fontana.

If you catch it at the right angle, the new style of reflective sheeting shows why it is called Prismatic High Intensity.

Not at Roy’s, but a remarkable California route marker from 1934.

Day two of our travels – sunrise over the hills just east of Bakersfield. Old route 155 gives us this view.

Hills and high clouds off highway 155.

This isn’t an old white guide sign … but the post it is on dates back to the time when it did hold an example of the previous standard.

We find this 1930s bridge on an old 198 alignment south of Hanford.

The way to San Jose, under the high cirrus clouds.

This road connects Coalinga to state highway 25. It was built in the late 1940s.

Did I mention the high clouds? Also, we catch California in the last of its green season. In a month, this will all be dry.

We also get the last of wildflower season.

Uh oh, the road is flooded. It’s about 6 inches deep – will my low-clearance rental car make it? (Hint: it does.)

I do not know what kind of flowers these are, but they are across the river we just successfully forded.

We have made it to highway 25.

Why did the super fancy spotted chickens cross the road? Well, they didn’t; at least not while I was photographing them.

This 1957 guide sign is still in the wild.

As is this historic marker, also 1957. You can probably figure out approximately where it is.

An abandoned two-lane concrete alignment of US-101.

This experiment in retroreflective signage dates to about 1966. As you can see, it wasn’t a very successful experiment.

This 1960 sign on By-Pass 101 (“By-Pass” designation having been covered up since 1964) is the last known porcelain outline US shield green sign in California. I remember when I first moved to the Bay Area there were about 6 signs like this in this general vicinity – this is the only one which has survived some major construction projects. Apparently, California has the money to replace old signs. Go figure.

An oddity: green signs are not supposed to have the state name on the route markers.

The rarely seen 21×18 style of interstate shield.

And how about this brilliant emerald green porcelain guide sign? it is a City of San Jose installation, and dates to 1960, when the intersection of The Alameda (old US-101, now highway 82) with nearby highway 17 (now interstate 880) was built.

Just a shot straight into the sun with weird angles that I thought came out well.

This sign dates to 1960. Note the pattern of rivets around the 82 shield: yep, at one point the sign had a US-101 shield instead! Until 1964, this downtown route was US-101, and the freeway was By-Pass US-101.

And now, some photos from the third day of my trip. Why yes, that is a white porcelain CSAA guide sign half-buried in the shrubbery! The sign is from approximately 1948, when this road was built.

What other treasures does this particular intersection reveal? Here’s a CSAA nine-spot end-of-road reflector!

The intersection that keeps on giving! Three 1948-vintage signs to be found here.

A few miles up the road, we come across one more CSAA porcelain white sign.

This sign is notable for inexplicably featuring the wide US route shield for a route number that clearly does not demand it.

Would anyone like to tell me what this sign says? The pair dates to between 1964 and 1973, and therefore it would likely have, under the US-50 shield … another US-50 shield? And under the I-80 … another I-80? Highly confusing; why would they replace signs with themselves. But those are the logical routes that passed through this junction – US-50 heading south, and I-80 (which is now Business I-80, or “to I-80″ as the case may be) heading west. The question remains: why the late-90s patches? (And also, what was under Fresno? Oakland?)

Nothing to see here, just someone’s private collection of some rare and unusual California signs.

Some more signs out of a private collection. This pair, dating to 1961, once stood in Janesville, Wisconsin.

and that’s all, folks!

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.

Redding. Look at that, a correct historic shield.

Redding again – the railroad bridge across the Sacramento river.

Bridges across the Sacramento River. On the left, the Diestelhorst Bridge from 1915. On the right, its 1990s replacement.

The bright-green miracle of flash photography.

The old US-99 bridge at the north end of Red Bluff.

Old signs in Williams. These are on old US-99W. 99 splits into East and West branches in Red Bluff, and rejoins again into a single route in Sacramento.

Williams has a pair of these old button copy guide signs. The back of the other one can be seen at the other side of the intersection.

Is California turning into Massachusetts? Shieldless route number on a brand new sign on I-5 southbound.

Now that’s the proper way to do it! Classic 1967 signage, that was never even retrofitted with buttons in the early 70s.

This is California’s early 1990s shield style, complete with button copy and 1961-spec shields.

This route marker is in a far more suburban environment than what this photo would lead you to believe. It is certainly very old: white, instead of yellow, legend, and the classic 18″ size.

White signs are always nice to see… especially when attached to a 1940s wooden picket!

… tank??

A little railroad underpass on Sacramento County route J3. Unfortunately, the vandals seem to have found it.

Now, I don’t object to graffiti on general principle – I just don’t see the value in a four-tenths-of-a-second scrawl-and-run, when you could instead put in a bit of effort and come up with something like this.

A 4 shield old enough to lack the “property of the State of California” label. It actually serves a current alignment of 4, in Stockton.

And suddenly, the sunset is upon us.

Too bad this picture ended up cut off and horribly blurry, because otherwise I like it.

A couple of very dark clouds.

Brand new sign – but made to the oldest specs of them all: 1957.

Sunset in the Central Valley. Looking west from a minor farm road that crosses state highway 132 near Tracy.

Purple mountains. Really getting to the end of sunset now.

Clearly, I need to go back for this photo during the daytime. Morning, if possible. The gantry dates to 1959-62 and features the old-style narrow spade for route 2.

that’s all, folks. Next time: San Felipe, the return!

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.

We start our day in Ely, and this sign greets us on the outskirts of town. Nevada declared US-50 to be the Loneliest Road in America in 1986. Not quite true – Nevada’s own US-6 is far less traveled – but it led to some great signage. Unfortunately, the signs have been disappearing without replacement since the original signage, and now there are only two left!

Early, early dawn – just west of Ely.

Moon setting as the sun starts to think about rising.

Sun about to rise, as we look east.

Some serious purple on the horizon.

The view to the south.

Did I mention this turned into a great sunrise??

The sun appears! Between the previous batch of photos and this one, I drove forward into a bank of fog, and thus we get extremely diffuse lighting and clouds.

Did I mention the fog? It gives us intermittent views of the mountains to come.

The last of our morning alpenglow on the mountains.

An example of a Lincoln Highway post associated with a historic marker. Five of the seven markers I saw were clearly moved by the state, around 1984, to be near historic markers. As mentioned above – they were made around 1984, at the same time as the historic markers.

Heavy deer crossing. This doe – out of maybe 20 does and bucks that I observed in the same cluster, crossing the highway at the same time – has decided to look back to see just what she survived.

A mountain range about to disappear into fog.

Okay, fair enough, the road is plenty lonely. Nothing but silver mountains and observer.

Spot the halo. It’s faint, but it is there, intersecting the land at the perfect spot just between the mountains.

Super-extra-close-up of the distant mountains.

Approaching Austin. Fog in the lowlands.

Descending into said fog.

Older gantry. Alas, I did not find any 1961-spec shields in Nevada. A lot of signs were replaced during the great renumbering of 1975-1982 – even though the US routes kept their numbers, it was an excuse to update the signs.

We just came from that bank of fog.

Certainly a sign that dates to 1982 at the latest… and a mountain range in the fog behind it.

Useful billboard. Around the bend, approaching the town of Austin, is invariably the Nevada Highway Patrol. At least, they were out on Christmas morning! The hydrant and posts in the background were painted for the bicentennial in 1976, and have stayed that way.

Yellow and yellow. 1950s sign, 1950s farm equipment.

The other survivor. This one is on the outskirts of Austin, heading east.

Middlegate Junction. This car must’ve gotten stuck and stayed another 80 years and counting.

Old alignment of US-50 heading out of Middlegate Junction.

I do not remember the name of this mountain, but there is a green guide sign that points it out.

Old culvert, old painted marker. Original to the 1920s? That I do not know – but it sure is old.

Standing atop the culvert, and looking east along the old road: US-50 and the Lincoln Highway.

How’s this for concentric halos around the sun? It must’ve hidden itself behind some ice clouds, resulting in this view.

Turning off US-50 past Fallon; we are now heading up old state highway 79 towards Virginia City.

New Geiger Grade, 1936. The old Geiger Grade was a major route connecting the mines of Virginia City to civilization, as early as the 1860s when the Comstock Lode was discovered. This was the first major silver deposit found in Nevada, and it meant that Virginia City was, in 1880, the second-largest city in Nevada: just behind Carson City, and ahead of Goldfield. Las Vegas? Barely existed at the time!

What’s this, a ’61 spec shield? Indeed, this is ’61 green guide sign specification, and this sign is at the NV-341 (Geiger Grade/Virginia City) junction with the new 395 freeway bypass.

Why yes, that is an orange interstate shield. Interstate 580 (aka the just-mentioned US-395 bypass freeway in Reno and Carson City) is undergoing heavy rebuilding, especially around the junction with I-80.

Finished with Nevada, and back in California. An old US-395 alignment, a railroad underpass… and mountains in the distance.

Yep, that is a 395 paddle!

Lassen County uses these green squares to mark their county routes – and sometimes they use the blue pentagons too.

Route 29… wait, what?? Really, route 29? That is a reference to the 1909 legislative route definition of various highways around the state. The routes were not signed until 1928 (US highways) and 1934 (state routes), and upon signing they got a set of different numbers. So California has existed in this weird state of limbo, with two different sets of numbers – one legislatively defined, and one signed – and here is a very, very rare example of a legislative route number being actually posted on a sign.

Route 29 was defined in 1909, and was signed as state route 7 in 1934-1935 until US-395 was extended south from Washington and took over the routing.

This may be the only example of a 1909 legislative route being signed in the state. I have a photo from the 1920s of legislative route 64 (US-60/70, as signed) but that picture is from the 20s. This is an example that stands as of last week!

By the way, yes, this is an old alignment of bear route 7 and US-395.

Back on a modern alignment of 29/7/395.

Susanville is the capital of surviving CSAA signs. I counted at least 50, and that was just by driving the main drag and occasionally looking down the side streets. There may be more CSAA signs in Susanville than in every other town in California combined!

What is this sudden influx of snow? We’re taking highway 44 from Susanville across the mountains… and the precipitation is increasing.

It alternates between rain and snow.

The Pitt River, as we approach sunset.

As darkness arrives… one more town to explore, looking for old signs. Well, that is a 1930s picket, but the sign affixed to it is clearly much newer.

Dark. Temperature falls. Can you say “oh shit”? Gotta cross the mountains, with the snow falling … well, let’s just say that I made it. No snow tires, no chains, but I knew that I was past the top of the pass when this scene presented itself – so my task was to keep going forward and try to keep the car on the road.

Did that. Took me an hour and a half to do the last 38 miles to interstate highway 5, but hey, better late than stranded, right?

Next time: less snow!

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!

Altogether too much traffic on I-15 as we depart heading towards Riverside County.

Taking I-10 instead of I-15 or I-215 gets us off the main road with all the Los Angeles to Las Vegas traffic. While you wouldn’t think of putting Christmas and gambling in the same sentence… apparently, half of LA’s population did!

This sign dates to 1966, when 62 became a state highway.

And now, the Amboy Road, which connects Twentynine Palms to Amboy. We’re taking a somewhat circuitous route, but at least the traffic levels are favorable.

Kelso-Cima Road again, but this time with some more context.

I think San Bernardino County is responsible for this sign.

The sign that this replaced survives: it has “US 91/466″ to the left, and is a 1950s porcelain Auto Club sign: white with black legend.

We’re back on I-15, as that is the only way into Nevada in the area. The town of Primm, formerly known as State Line, is in the distance.

The mountains turn red.

A bit of poor planning gets us sunset at the worst of Vegas traffic. Oops.

Red skies… and traffic lights.

I’ve taken more realistic photos of I-15 through the Virgin River Gorge on more than one occasion, but this one came out so over-the-top misexposed that I just had to keep it. About 80% of this photo’s pixels are railed to one maximum or another. Gotta love it.

There we go – a much better exposure. Or, combination of exposures as the case may be. The very discontinuous star trails should give a good idea as to which photos of a series I selected to combine.

The I-15 routing through the gorge is one of the rare examples of an interstate that replaced an old two-lane road, making the trip more scenic in the process. I-70 vs US-50 between Green River and Salina, Utah is another example, as is I-68/US-40 at Sideling Hill in Maryland.

And we’ve made it to Utah. Don’t tell Enterprise, as they do not allow the car past Nevada and Arizona. Note the “loop 15″ shield – this is a direct replacement of an older button copy sign, which did not have the resolution for a detailed Business Loop 15.

And some actual button copy. This, and a corresponding sign southbound, are – I believe – the only button copy signs left on I-15 in Utah.

The highest posted speed limit in the country. Texas has it on I-10 and I-20 in the sticks out west, and Utah has three segments of it now on I-15. From milepost 65 to 85, then miles 116 to 133 (ending at I-70 at Cove Fort), and one more section from 144 to 164. There may be more north of US-50 as well that I did not notice.

This is where we get off I-15 and head west on US-50 all the way to Carson City, Nevada.

What do we have here? An early 1960s US-50 shield, complete with the custom Utah font! Alas, the I-15 is much newer. The 50 was probably paired with a US-91 to begin its life.

Brand new beehive 100 shield, with extra wide white margin.

Standard-font 1961 spec shields are not difficult to find in Utah.

We leave Hinckley with an eye on the gas gauge. Past here, there is gas only at the state line (83 miles away), and then Ely, Austin, Middlegate Junction, and Fallon as we cross the most uninhabited portions of Nevada.

Yep, that’s a cutout US-93 marker in Nevada. It was put up quite recently (2005 or so) at Majors Junction. There were, at one point, US-6 and US-50 cutouts as well, but those are gone.

I should’ve stopped for this one, as opposed to shooting a hand-held 5 second exposure out the window. The view is from a sweeping curve along Connors Pass, and there was absolutely no place to pull over and visibility for stopping in the road… and surprisingly many vehicles at that time of the night, so I kept going.

At small size, it looks all right, but the full-size version is very blurry. It should actually be fairly easy to get rid of the motion blur: all the stars should be points, so taking a star track and inverting it should give us the appropriate deconvolution filter. Quick, where’s my knowledge of Fourier transforms?

And that does it for the first day of the trip. Next up: US-50 across Nevada.

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.

Getting an early start on things. Down we go from Beatty to Death Valley.

Ghosts of Rhyolite. How I managed to make this look like a 1950s Kodachrome print that’s been sitting in the sun for too long, I will never know.

Jeff makes a new friend.

Strange artifacts abound in Rhyolite.

An inert truck.

At one point, this was the main bank of Rhyolite.

Another somewhat derelict old building.

We’re suddenly hit by direct rays.

The old railroad station. And yes, that is a barbed-wire fence around it. The TSA must’ve been here.

A lucky shot with the flash – right out the window as I had to make the decision on which 190 we wanted to get to. (We chose wrong.)

The idea that the California route marker is supposed to be a miner’s spade was apparently lost on whomever put this sign together.

This historical marker dates to 1962.

The Furnace Creek visitors’ center.

This may very well be the original post that this sign once hung on! (If not this exact spot, then within a couple dozen feet for sure.) Now the sign is in Jeff’s collection.

A 1955 example of a historical marker. Note the Division of Highways logo at the bottom. They dropped that midway through 1956.

A fairly typical view of the eastern rim of Badwaster Basin.

And the western rim. This is one of the many dirt roads we didn’t travel on. Really, we didn’t – we didn’t have a good enough vehicle. It is impossible to ask for a high-clearance 4×4 vehicle when renting, because then they know you’re planning to break the contract. If one is lucky, they can end up with one. Not this time.

All that’s left of the Eagle Borax Works is this … information kiosk?? Jeff wonders “wtf, where did it go?”

The other Bennett’s Long Camp sign.

Guess what time it is? Yep, it’s time for another installment of Oddly Shaped Tree!

Abandoned equipment in Badwater Basin. Back in the day, this was one serious mining area!

Perfect day for clouds.

An old geological survey marker. It dates back to 1943.

Too bad the elevation is not filled in – it would be well below sea level.

Those dang meddlesome Hungarians…

Fun with shapes at Ashford Mill.

A coyote appears.

Spot the sheep. There are eight bighorn sheep in this picture.

And four here.

And finally three, for a total of … fifteen!

Heading up the eastern basin road.

Old Dinah is now parked at Furnace Creek.

Looking back east, as we head towards Stovepipe Wells.

And one more of these. Plenty in Death Valley.

Top of the world. Well, at the very least, a local maximum. This is the Skidoo road, which leads to an old mining town. Alas, the truck couldn’t make it up the incline, so we hiked the last several hundred feet. This view is southeast, with Badwater Basin visible.

Pete Aguereberry’s mine, in the Panamint Range, to the west of Death Valley.

Fun with shapes at Pete Aguereberry’s old mine.

Pete’s Buick? Not quite – Pete died in 1945, and this is a 1951 Roadmaster.

As you can see, the car is in perfectly serviceable shape, and ready to be driven off the lot.

The road to Ballarat. This was our last dirt road of the day, because our tire was deflating at an alarming rate…

One last moonshot, and then it’s full speed to the airport. We ended up making it, despite having to stop every 20 miles to re-inflate the tire. We figured that it would take over an hour to figure out how to change the tire, and that would cause Jeff to miss his plane.

After the dropoff, I change the tire, and … I was right! It took me an hour and 15 minutes at a gas station in Jean, Nevada, mainly because the spare tire was held on by some esoteric contraption, and the instruction manual may as well have been in Japanese. But hey, all’s well that ends well, and next time we’re securing a real 4×4 and going down some real roads!

Dale, can I borrow your International??

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.

Classic porcelain signage on the 91 freeway. Looking for a few old signs in the Los Angeles area before picking up Jeff at the airport.

What a horrible photo of this classic sign. This, from 1959, is the oldest known example of button copy signage in California: individual letters, numbers and symbols are made out of aluminum, have reflectors inserted, and then the whole element is riveted onto the green background. The sign originally had “Freeway” instead of the 91 shield (referring to a US-91 freeway!) and also the top destination was first “Riverside” and then “San Bernardino” when the freeway was extended.

Incidentally, 91 no longer goes to Long Beach – Artesia is the correct destination. US-91 went to Long Beach, back in the day.

The classic truss bridge on old US-66 in Victorville.

This is a maintenance engine. It travels around the country, repairing tracks.

This 66 sign is from 1964, and was posted in Kingman, Arizona. It is in an antique shop in Victorville.

Antique-store cat.

Elmer’s Bottle Farm. Oro Grande, on old 66.

A black interstate shield?? Your explanation is as good as mine.

This classic 1960 sign survives at the junction of I-15 and I-40. Under the patch is a US-91 shield.

At Baker, we turn north off the 15 freeway.

Approaching the sorts of landscapes that Death Valley is known for.

Testing out the metal detector on some control signs.

Deep shadows at three in the afternoon. Death Valley in November.

Same dragonfly. Different angle.

One last one.

We found this half of a coke bottle on top of the fencepost. One marking on it potentially identifies it as being from 1948. In any case, it is old enough for the glass to have turned green.

This section of the world – near the Old Spanish Trail turnoff on highway 127 – always reminds me of the Badlands in South Dakota. The Old Spanish Trail, incidentally, is so venerable that it was bypassed by 1906 or so with the Arrowhead Highway as the main route between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles.

At the gas station in Shoshone is this 1929-1933 sign…

… and this 1922-1928 style.

An old post! This post was once painted white, with a black base, and held three 1929-style white rectangles. It is at a T-junction between two very old trails in the park.

Why yes, it is starting to get dark.

Just after sunset. An old trail heads east.