Minimum maintenance road.

Flooding causes standing water. Standing water causes mosquitoes and other insects. A fresh source of food means the dragonflies grow fat and happy. This one was about three inches long, with a five inch wingspan.

We’ve got ourselves a good old fashioned lightning storm. Western Kansas.

We start with another train – no airplane fuselages this time, though.

The gantry tells the tale. At one point, this road was US-75, and the rightmost (missing) set of signs indicated that. Then, US-75 was moved onto the I-29 freeway, so they changed the gantry to indicate that – and added the new county route designation.

when they moved US-75 well into Nebraska, they took off the trailblazer, but oddly did not move the county signs to the main gantry. too much effort, apparently.

Green grass and high tides.

This old yellow stop sign might actually still be in service… it all depends on whether the dirt path it serves is a public road, or just someone’s driveway.

Old 75 intersects current 30. The sign dates to 1994, as evidenced by the sticker on the back, which implies that 75 was moved across the river after that time.

Iowa is the only state I know which uses outline shields for interstates so regularly.

One in infrared, for variety’s sake. Old US-30/75; the Lincoln Highway approaching Omaha.

Nebraska City is about the last place in the state where you will find these “BUSINESS”-tagged state route shields. The US routes are in a lot of places. The earliest ones date back to 1984, when the bypass was built.

The newer sign assemblies are divided into multiple pieces, like this one.

The view from the highway 2 bridge across the Missouri river between Iowa and Nebraska. Why is the water brown? A sewage treatment plant upstream was flooded. Ick.

The levee is holding … for now.

There’s an on-ramp in here somewhere.

You can see the first Iowa state highway 2 marker in the distance … not long before the road sinks.

The water isn’t usually this high. Or, this brown.

Instant business route marker… just add stencil.

Somewhere in Nebraska, this flower blooms.

We’re not just looking for pretty flowers. We are driving this road because it is an old alignment of Nebraska state highway 4. It got renumbered to US-136 sometime in 1951. The green post may very well have once held a NE-4 shield.

This might be the oldest sign we see in Nebraska. The black going all the way to the outside border, the yellow faded to white – this identifies the sign as mid-1950s. It’s on the same old alignment of NE-4/US-136.

Indeed, this sign was once yellow.

We are now in Kansas, where we find this white guide sign on an old US-24 alignment.

Cloud County indeed.

This storm cloud is centered over Salina, Kansas, over 75 miles away.

A railroad runs parallel to US-24. We catch this train just around sunset.

Blue skies and storm clouds.

The storm approaches. This is about a one-minute exposure, with the clouds being illuminated by successive lightning strikes.

We interrupt this meteorological quest to bring you a picture of an old brown 16″ county route marker. They’re getting quite hard to find in Kansas.

It’s electric.

Strike after strike after strike. I combined about seven consecutive exposures here.

The ranch fence gets one in the teeth.

One last lightning strike.

And now for something completely different. This might be the last cutout US route marker in Kansas. Apparently, the US-36 shields in St. Francis are gone, so this is it.

Next morning. As dawn breaks, we are in Colorado. Along the side of US-160 is this abandoned house.

Our first photo from New Mexico. It appears to be a large beast of some kind, possibly carnivorous.

Can a Prius go 100mph? Well, down a road I’ve driven far too many times… yes!

Oh dear, US-64 got demoted.

and that’s where we leave off for now!

I headed south to visit my friend Brian, then was about to turn back west to take photos of the Rockies… before noting that a Snowstorm of Usual Occurrence was blowing through and it would be at least two days before the roads were somewhat less than total failure. Thus, it became a frolic through the farmlands for a few days.

A wintry evening in Colorado.

Foggy night in farmland Kansas.

Hey look, an old sign. I happened upon this one in the middle of the night, and got the long-exposure shot out in the middle of the frosted fields.

Big green Sinclair dinosaur. Somewhere in Wyoming – wherever I spent the night, plus another sixty miles or so south on I-25.

Winter trees in Wyoming.

Interstate 25, plowed adequately.

Old signs. Wyoming does a good job of adhering to early standards for interstate shields, but their sign replacement policy is frequent and brutal – so this gantry from 1990 counts as old.

Somewhere in Denver, near to where Brian lives, some excellent clouds appeared.

Clouds straight overhead.

Iridescent clouds over US-36. Yes, if the ice crystals line up just right, they really do glow in rainbow colors like that! I barely got this photo while navigating the curves of the road – ten seconds later, the effect was gone.

Just past dusk. Here is where I realize there is a storm to the west, and crossing the Rockies would be a dubious proposition. Time to head east.

Someone’s tree, illuminated blue well after dusk.

A popular color.

Wreath and lamp post. I don’t remember which town on US-24 in eastern Colorado this is, but I think this photo randomly came out well.

There something wrong is the order with words of the sign this on.

In Kansas now. We see here the tree types of highway markers that Kansas uses – including both their regular (left) and slightly odd (right) takes on interstate shields.

Moon halos in the fog.

They are not particularly old, but those are indeed black guide signs for US-24 and K-25 in Colby.

Alas, I completely biffed this photo of what might have been the last photo of a Business Loop shield in Kansas. 1958 spec, no less. Why did I do so badly on this shot? Because the sheriff was busy escorting me out of town, having caught scent of me doing far too many U-turns near the black guide signs.

Not really. US-40 continues all the way to Park City, Utah. It just happens to meet up with I-70 here and is only sporadically signed until just west of Denver. But it hasn’t ended.

This speed limit sign has seen better days: like, when all of its friends and neighbors were embossed too.

A small town in Nebraska. We just crossed over on US-83 from Kansas.

Some trees. The background is illuminated by sodium streetlights in the fog.

And we’ve reached the freeway.

This is where we leave off, as we spend the next day scouring interstate 80 in Nebraska for old signs.

This is the New Mexico/Colorado/Oklahoma triple point. Dale takes this opportunity to breathe some refreshing Oklahoma air, and drink some water he has brought with him from New Mexico – and park in two states at the same time.

Dale parks the car squarely in a single state, and looks up at the Kansas/Colorado/Oklahoma marker that is visible from miles away – a good thing, because the dirt roads that one takes to get to it are somewhat labyrinthine.

The Oklahoma panhandle is known for the occasional thunderstorm.

One of Dale’s excellent Arizona state route 85 signs. That is a Navajo good-luck symbol – pay no attention to what they were doing with it in Europe a couple years after this sign style debuted in 1927. (And yes, you can have one of your own!)

That is one heavily loaded bee.

Old US-64 heads east towards Oklahoma. Several sections of 64 have been reduced to dirt road, including two several-mile ones that sandwich a seemingly random 100 foot long paved segment.

The area is filled with strange, demented beasts. Actually, this one is cute. Wait, what I am saying – oh no, the savage carnivores have eaten my brain!

Here, the road is paved – and there are no terrifying creatures to be seen anywhere.

Welcome to Cleaver Country.

This sign, several feet from the triple-point marker, may very well go back to the 1910s. It has the individual letters cut out of the steel with a blowtorch.

We rustle up an antelope.

We arrive in Boise City, home of this six-way (!) multiplex. And yes, the routes are multiplexed, and not just intersecting – all the way around the traffic circle surrounding the courthouse, you are on all six routes in one direction or the other. Too bad 325 doesn’t continue because, hey, that would be a seven-way multiplex.

Oops. Yes, it was once a U. S. route, but not quite with that number.

This is indeed a white guide sign. And it is brand new. It replaces a … different white guide sign that is from 2006. The entire roundabout is filled with white guide signs.

There is one green sign – located on the inside of the circle.

The Santa Fe Trail was divided into many branches, with the hope that at least one was serviceable during any weather event. This is the Cimarron River branch, and follows US-56.

The foreground flower is in Oklahoma. The background ones are in Kansas.

Dale is in precisely one state here: Colorado. He never quite made it directly under the marker.

Will we get caught in a thunderstorm at sunset? (Nope, we miss it by a few miles.)

This all that’s been placed to note the triple point between New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. Texas gets identified by name – the other two are only plots of land.

Finally, we arrive at home… and so does the lightning. Here it is striking one of the television towers on top of Sierra Grande – this was before I realized that in order to attempt to catch a lightning bolt, I should aim the camera at the highest point of land between here and … Mount Kilimanjaro. (Seriously, in that general direction, that is the next point that is higher.)

The interchange with I-70 was rebuilt from late 2003 to December 2004. This view looks northbound at the stack on the west side of Kansas City, Kansas.

The view above looks northbound at the southern beginning of 635 in Kansas City. South of here US 69 and US 169 have an expressway portion that contains a few crazy tight ramps and blind spots. Hitting 635 is a nice change as the road opens up with concrete and a faster design speed.

This view looks northbound towards I-70. There are some great views along I-635 as it dives into the valleys of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers.

The last exit in Kansas is for K-5 east. It is an exit only as 635 prepares to cross the Missouri River with two lanes in each direction. KDOT closed the Missouri River bridge along 635 for 60 days during construction in 2005. Missouri had closed the Paseo Bridge (I-29 and I-35) over the river at about the same time for urgent repairs, and asked KDOT in a letter to delay closing the 635 bridge for the sake of traffic flow. KDOT denied their request because of the cost of delaying the construction, and went ahead. The closure involved ripping out the freeway entirely and rebuilding it, from K-5 to the bridge. For a time, the only way to get to the other side of the river in Kansas City on an interstate was I-435.

The Interstate’s interchange with Parallel Parkway took place in 2005. The picture above is from 2003, while the one below is from 2008 in about the same spot. Originally opened in 1976, this section of freeway did not even last for 30 years. This phase of the project was 3 miles long and saw 6 new bridges built. This short section was the most expensive reconstruction phase, and cost over $43 million. It saw the freeway closed for lengthy stretches of time, irking many commuters and Kansas airport commuters. The new Parallel Parkway interchange is concrete and the diamond has been replaced with a SPUI.

This 1968 KDOT map shows another route for 635, one that took it across the river along the existing US 69 toll bridge. Eventually, additions in federal funds allowed for a new bridge to be constructed just to the west. This view of what might-have-been is echoed in the short freeway route of K-5 just north of Quindaro.

As for the Missouri section, its much older than the brand-new Kansas section, as is to be expected. It is primarily asphalt and mostly two lanes, except for this area near the road’s northern end. Like I-435, this interstate keeps its exit numbering as it crosses the state line.

435 is Kansas’ busiest roadway, and the state’s DOT is in the process of completely rebuilding the road. It is the largest project (in cost) ever undertaken by KDOT. The largest part of the project is widening from 6 to 8 lanes plus collector/distributor lanes. Work is complete from Missouri west to Antioch, with the section from Metcalf to Antioch completed in 2006. For now, 435 from Antioch to west of 69 is ongoing. Lets take a look at some of the disparate sections through Overland Park.

This view looks at 435 westbound at Metcalf in 2003. Note that the newer signs omit the US 169 designation. The author is unsure, but he’s fairly certain that US 169 was not recently rerouted through Johnson County (was it?).

Metcalf, US 169, is the second busiest arterial road in Kansas (after Kellogg in Wichita). Along it sit the state’s largest office park and major employment centers. The interchange was recently upgraded and has multiple lane exit ramps. Metcalf Ave was named for a banker from Oklahoma, who was an early developer and purchased large tracts of land in the early days of Johnson County.

The Antioch Road interchange is new, and was designed to relieve pressure on nearby Metcalf Avenue, which is a “real bitch” at most hours, according to the author’s local friend.

This view looks westbound at the new Antioch interchange. Currently it is a half diamond, with access available to the east. The buildings to the left are part of Overland Park’s Corporate Woods office park, which is Kansas’ largest and holds some of the area’s largest employers. Overland Park is the second largest city in Kansas, after Wichita. It is home to some of the tallest buildings in the state and is the corporate headquarters for such companies as Applebee’s, Embarq, and Sprint/Nextel.

Braided ramps, not yet complete, will allow traffic onto 435 westbound from Antioch, and onto US 69.

US 69 is a freeway from Fort Scott to the north. The cloverleaf at 435 is being reconfigured and a two lane flyover ramp from southbound US 69 to eastbound 435 will enhance traffic flow. US 69 provides an important route from downtown Kansas City into Overland Park, its largest suburb.

This view looks west at the new US 69 stack under construction. It is due to be completed in early 2009.

Quivira Road was named for the fabled land that the Spanish explorer Coronado sought. This section of 435 is the older portion, and will be reconstructed in upcoming years.

435 westbound at I-35, southwest of Kansas City. Kansas signs multiplexed US highways and state highways primarily off to the side, as is seen here.