South Dakota. US-16 and interstate 90. And a wee bit of Wyoming and Colorado in the evening. December 2007. Grim winter.


18×18 I-90 shield. 1957 specs. And, more interestingly, an embossed arrow to point the way. Since the 1957 specification called for white, not blue, arrows, they took a 1948-spec arrow that they had lying around and used it to point to the new freeway.

This is the sign find of the day. There are only two shields with the original specifications left in South Dakota, and this is the only 18×18 example.


The Badlands – a sudden mountain range in the western half of South Dakota. These days, a tourist attraction – back then, in 1866, an impermeable obstacle that prevents one from reaching the west.


Black Hills, South Dakota. An eleven minute exposure, 6100 feet, -11 degrees. Yep, I was cold.


Look at the old I-90 sign. Just opposite this one, on the other side of the intersection, is the 18×18 ’57 spec one. In the early morning, as we head west on old US-16.


Train in the snow.


Old yellow stop sign! At a dirt-road side street to US-16.


Behold the llama. Yeap, there is a llama farm somewhere along old US-16 in South Dakota.


Bleak.


US-16 heading into the grimness westbound.


What’s this, the clouds are about to clear?


Perfectly camouflaged deer.


Cold. And fast.


The Badlands. Here we are!


More of the Badlands.


Mountain sheep far away from civilization.


The other old-style interstate highway marker found in South Dakota.


Getting dark, as we come across this 1961-spec US-14A shield.


Not often that you see “US” on the shield!


Nice and warm.


Stars. Car headlights. US-85 heading into the Black Hills – South Dakota in the dead of night.


One more in the night. Gotta love the star trails.


The Milky Way, under South Dakota skies.


Wyoming. Almost Colorado, in fact – interstate 25, the last rest area before the border.


At the Colorado border – in the background you can see the “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” sign.

next up… back to Colorado – and this time we successfully cross the Rockies, in a whiteout blizzard across Red Mountain Pass on the Million Dollar Highway, US-550.