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 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.)

DFW’s tolling authority, the NTTA, is replacing all of their signs – which are now unique to each route – with a standardized version. The Dallas North Tollway’s familiar round green shields are about 30% gone; the George Bush Turnpike’s old signs are over 60% replaced, and the newly christened Sam Rayburn Tollway (SH 121) has about 25% of its signs in the new style.

One state north, Oklahoma, is updating their new state highway shields with alternatively colored signs for scenic routes. Oklahoma can be surprisingly scenic. I only wish the directional banner would match.

This led me again to ponder the question of which states are using it and which are not. To address the issue, we have created a guide to catalog each state and whether it uses Clearview of not. Included are examples either photographed by ourselves or by contributors showing examples of the font in each state.

Feel free to write with additional sightings, omissions, or corrections.

At least in Southeastern Oklahoma this month, there are not too many of the new signs put up. Idabel, Antlers, Hugo, and Durant are all still using the old circle signs. For the few I found, they were signed by road rather than by intersection or area. That means, there are lots of signposts with both old and new state road signs.