The AARoads Blog

And, finally, we have the third part of the trip – from Antelope Canyon to New Mexico. Daniel Brim and I, driving a cargo van… always fun exploring narrow old roads in a big old vehicle like that!

Here’s a 1950s Indian road sign! Complete with peeling numbers on some of the oldest engineer grade (does not fade to green) scotchlite I have ever seen. They invented the stuff in 1950 and this is not much newer than that. 18×12 inches; somewhere in southeast Utah near the Four Corners area.

This might very well be a meteor in daytime! I just noticed this when I was processing these photos – note the smoke trail in the middle. I have the photo from 1 second before, and 4 seconds after, and they show nothing – but this one definitely has that black streak, which I believe to be a smoke trail from a very bright meteor.

Behold the birds. Pagosa Springs, Colorado has this lake, fountain assembly… and swans!

(more…)

Photos from Kansas, Colorado, and Oklahoma (and the single point in which they intersect) from September, 2009 – and some New Mexico, and a really, really small quantity of Texas.

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.

(more…)

More from my New Mexico trip of November 2008, including some actual New Mexico this time.

On the mountain pass between Chama, New Mexico, and Cumbres, Colorado – both states call this one highway 17. The sky was dark blue, just after sunrise – the snow is that bright, and there is just that little atmosphere, at 10,000 feet.

Sunset over the plains of northeast New Mexico. Old US-64 (now state highway 325) near Capulin Volcano.

An undisclosed location in northeast New Mexico, home to my friend Dale. Certainly no old signs to be found anywhere.

(more…)

I was in Denver this weekend for the big IMTA map convention, and took a lot of photos of I-25, I-70, and I-225. I-25 and I-225 were under construction for many years as part of a rebuilding process called T-Rex. The project involved adding lanes, bridges, and two rail lines along the interstate corridors. The end result is impressive.

Through Arapahoe County, I-25 is an unrelenting 10 lanes with a rail line on the west side. The lane count goes down to 8 after I-225 and eventually to 6 on the un-reconstructed portion of the road near downtown. It reminded me of I-5 losing lanes headed northbound into Norwalk and downtown Los Angeles. As always, click the smaller photos to get the larger ones.

(more…)