Missed opportunities while roadgeeking

[webny99]

I wasn't totally sure where to put this, but I'll start it here in General Highway Talk and it can be moved if warranted.

I can't believe myself on this one: while passing through the Utica area last night, we decided on a pit stop near Yorkville. I was driving and got directions going on my phone, since it was fairly impromptu and I hadn't seen the route beforehand. I wanted to maximize new mileage, and had seen that part of the route was via NY 5S. So at the Thruway exit, Google said exit left towards Genesee St./NY 5S, but exiting right towards NY 5/8/12 and I-790 had a "similar ETA". I exited left in hopes of getting to NY 5S without thinking it through, then took a shortcut over to NY 5S and continued on to NY 5A. Well, a few minutes later, I realized that following the ramps to NY 5/8/12 and I-790 would have also reached NY 5A, and would have also used the 1-mile stretch of I-790 south of the Thruway that I needed for a clinch of I-790. So here I had a perfect opportunity to clinch I-790, and completely blew it. Now, who knows when I'll have another chance? Not only that, now my travels on NY 5A (and later NY 840) are disconnected from the rest of my travels, while they could have been connected via I-790. I'm so mad at myself every time I think about it. It was a huge bummer and frustrating ending to an otherwise great day of traveling.

I'm sure it's happened to the best of us.. we inadvertently miss out on some road-related sight or highway section while traveling and come to regret it later. What opportunities have you missed while out on the road - and did you ever make it up to yourself, or are you still regretting it to this day?

[Max Rockatansky]

Back during the summer of 2020 I went on a trip with my wife to the eastern Sierras.  She didn't tell me until we were over Tioga Pass that her co-workers pressured her into doing a funzy COVID test (she had no symptoms).  Things were going fine the first day and we checked into the hotel room in Mammoth.  My wife initially received a phone call early in the evening to inform her she tested negative, so I go to bed with some peace of mind.  Turns out the person reading the COVID test read the wrong results and my wife was actually positive, we were informed at about 11 PM (woke me up from my sleep to boot).

Basically this was all during the whole ten day COVID quarantine shenanigans in California.  This meant someone from Madera County (they were taking it serious at the time) would be attempting to contact trace my wife for at least a week.  Given it was a weekend and we were outside for the most part we attempted to salvage as many to-do items as we could (namely Onion Valley Road and Horseshoe Meadows Road).  A whole days worth of awesome roads in my Challenger ended up not making the cut for trip:

-  Rocky Creek Road
-  CA 168/Westgard Pass
-  White Mountain Road
-  Whitney Portal Road
-  Sherman Pass Road

At the very least I was able to cancel my second hotel for the trip without a charge.  It was the last non-symptoms COVID test my wife took, neither of us got sick and she worked from home for a week.  I was on vacation anyways so I just did some local hiking in case the contact tracer came looking for me (they did indirectly though my wife).

[Rothman]

Not visiting all the NPS sites when in Hawaii and just getting the national parks was a fluke on my part.

Over the years, I've certainly missed things here and there when couny clinching or Interstate clinching.  I missed a little smidge of I-40 in Nashville due to bad planning on my part.  Have a bit of I-94 in Milwaukee that I didn't have time for, either.  So far, though, I've been able to go back and do things the right way.

I-790 isn't that far from you, though, right?

[webny99]

I-790 isn't that far from you, though, right?

It's only just over 2 hours, but to pass up such a great chance is going to annoy me until I get a chance to finish it off (and who knows when that will be at this point).

[Max Rockatansky]

Not visiting New Idria Road and the Idria Mine but be one coming up for me.  The road has a posted closure sign for about two years.  I'm to understand New Idria Road is passable with careful driving but I'm not really in position to get into potential trouble with my driving record if something went wrong (given I get my background and DMV record regularly checked at work).  In the past I've had windows to drive New Idria Road while crossing Panoche Pass, but I've always been either too tired or just unmotivated. 

About the only option left to me is a 21 mile ride on my bike if I can get myself motivated to do it this winter.  Again, lots can go wrong and the Idria Mine is kind out on the moon if trouble was encountered.  If I had reliable backup to come search for me like I did I was frequently OHVing I would feel more comfortable trying.

[7/8]

I regret missing the last bit of BC 4 in Tofino. I'm currently at 99.61% which is painfully close to a clinch, but we were in a hurry to get a surf board rental and I forgot to get the last segment before leaving (doesn't help that I wasn't feeling well that day). Who knows when or if I'll get back there to finish it off.

[kurumi]

Driving by the I-680/CA 238 freeway stubs in Fremont countless times and never climbing up the hill to get a picture. A widening project on 680 included demolishing the future CA 238 overpasses.

In 2005 or so, missing a dramatic late winter photo at UT 143/148 (street view) where there was still 6 feet of snow on either side of 143, and 148 was closed, unplowed, just a wall of snow. But the sun was setting, we needed to get back to a route that we could be sure wouldn't strand us, and it was not the right time to say "wait, lemme take a few pics first".

[Bruce]

Not being able to do any daytime driving in Sacramento due to the long, long travel time from Lassen Peak when accounting for EV charging and traffic.

[Scott5114]

I got turned around in DC due to shoddy signage and ended up blowing the chance to clinch DC 295 (and thus the entire DC route system, since that's the only highway that exists in it).

[1995hoo]

Back in 2006, we were driving home from Mount-Tremblant with a stop in Ottawa en route. As we approached Route 401 near the southern end of Route 416, my sat-nav wanted me to take the last exit to the left and then exit right onto 401 instead of just taking the last little piece of 416 that joins directly onto 401. I don't know why it wanted that, and I didn't know why then, so I followed it to see if there might have been some reason it wanted me to go that way (there wasn't that I could discern). So that little piece is keeping me from the clinch of 416 and we haven't been in that area again since that trip.

In a similar vein, I'm missing 0.8 of a mile of the B9131 in Scotland. I was driving from St. Andrews to Edinburgh; I had flown in that day and I needed to check into my hotel when I got back to Edinburgh, so I wanted to get back and find the car park before it got too dark (turned out to be a wise move, it was hard to find). So I made a left onto the A917 when I reached Anstruther. Had I known the B9131 had only another 0.8 of a mile, I'd have followed it (it more or less just loops around and meets the A917 a little further east). But I didn't and I haven't been back to Scotland since–oddly, just like the Ontario gap mentioned above, this was also in 2006.

[Max Rockatansky]

On my recent trip to Maui I arrive early in Kahului and did a bunch of the signed highways in the area.  My plan was to drive the western tip of the island via the recently improved Kahekili Highway (CR 340), Honoapiilani Highway (HI 30) and Lahaina Bypass (HI 3000).  The rental I was driving had an engine malfunction on while on HI 32 which necessitated returning to Kahului Airport for a swap out.  I was on two hours of sleep by the time the swap was finished so I went to the hotel instead given it was later in the day.  CR 31 on Piilani Highway wasn't clinchable also due to a landslide, I didn't learn about it until arriving in Maui.

I'm not necessarily big on clinching generic routes but I would have loved to finished some of the more harrowing stuff like Piilani Highway and Kahekili Highway.

[formulanone]

I've missed a lot of things, too many to name. But I'm also fortunate to catch other opportunities, so it washes out.

In most cases, I just figure that "I'll get it next time", whether it's 3 months or 10 years later.

[jmacswimmer]

At the tail-end of a Colorado trip in February 2021, we were driving from Breckenridge back to Denver & planned to kill a few hours around the city before our return flight out of DEN. I absentmindedly stuck with I-70 all the way out of the Rockies & into Denver, realizing afterward that I passed up a golden (pun intended) opportunity to depart I-70 at exit 244 & follow US 6 thru Clear Creek Canyon (especially since we had time to spare anyway).  Oh well, next time.

[NWI_Irish96]

Probably will think of others, but the first thing that comes to mind is during a trip to Columbus, I drove all but the southern most half mile of OH 315 and didn't realize how close to clinching it I'd come.

[MATraveler128]

I had a chance to clinch I-395 in Massachusetts and Connecticut on the way to visit Fort Trumbull, but I had a friend in the car and we had to get off at CT 32 in Montville. I have nearly every mile of Interstate in Connecticut traveled and to this day I'm still missing the southernmost 5 miles of I-395. It's normally out of the way from where I usually venture and who knows when I'll ever be down that way for a while.

[Flint1979]

I-790 isn't that far from you, though, right?

It's only just over 2 hours, but to pass up such a great chance is going to annoy me until I get a chance to finish it off (and who knows when that will be at this point).

Heck if it was me I'd probably go out of my way to clinch it just to have some fun. Two hours isn't too much of a stretch I've done that before on spur of the moment. The Tunnel of Trees is about 3 hours from me and I've been thinking about going up there as I have never been on it in the fall before.

As far as missed opportunities for me I would say clinching the state of Delaware. I've been close to Delaware before but have never been in it. I don't think I'm missing much with that state though but still regret not doing it when I probably had the chance in February 2021.

[Rothman]

I-790 isn't that far from you, though, right?

It's only just over 2 hours, but to pass up such a great chance is going to annoy me until I get a chance to finish it off (and who knows when that will be at this point).

Heck if it was me I'd probably go out of my way to clinch it just to have some fun. Two hours isn't too much of a stretch I've done that before on spur of the moment. The Tunnel of Trees is about 3 hours from me and I've been thinking about going up there as I have never been on it in the fall before.

You could also just drive around the backwoods of New England for all sorts of tree tunnels in the fall...

[zzcarp]

When I was in college in the late 90's, I drove to New Jersey and ended up staying near the Garden State Parkway. Driving back, I took Garden State Pkwy to I-287 to I-78. I first regret not driving into New York City, where I could have left via the Holland Tunnel/I-78 as well as getting off for gas on US 22 at Easton and taking that while avoiding part of I-78's Allentown bypass. That's all that prevented me from the I-78 clinch.

Also New York related, my only time in New York City was in Jan. 2002. Even though I flew, I regret not taking a cab and going to Ground Zero at the time.

[hbelkins]

For years, there was a cutout VA 70 sign at that route's northern terminus at US 58 at Jonesville. I passed by it many times and saw it, but never turned off US 58 to photograph it. I always told myself "I'll get it next time" because at that time, I passed through that area with decent frequency.

Of course it got replaced before I ever got to take a picture of it.

I also wish I had thought to photograph the KY 402 signs that were installed by a contractor when the toll booths at the Mountain Parkway's Exit 33 was removed and that interchange was converted from the old-style toll booth cloverleaf to a standard diamond.

At that time, the late 1980s, the road was officially classified as KY 402 on paper (after a short period during which it was KY 114) but it was never signed as such for either route.

I also missed a "KY 127" goof that I saw in Owen County at twilight when riding with my brother and sister-in-law to the Amtrak station in Cincinnati for our Cardinal/Zephyr trip in 2019. Next time I was on that road, which was last summer, I saw it had been replaced.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

Back in 2000, Alex Nitzman (and Andy Field?) and myself both stayed in Burlington Vermont, but did not meet one another.
Back then, I didn't realize how close we were till I got back and was reading up on MTR posts I had missed during my trip.

[pderocco]

I've driven US-101 in California (all of it) many times, but until I started organizing my efforts to clinch state highways in California, I never realized there was a dinky little CA-222 in Ukiah. Hopefully, this fall I'll have the extreme thrill of driving those 1.6 miles. Twice. (Zzzzz)

Worse, though, I have an asterisk on my US-101 clinch, due to the Willits Bypass. Last time I drove through there was about one week before it opened. At least I could see most of the new road from the old road, though.

Without intending to do so, I managed to clinch I-70 in a few trips back in the 90's, except for one thing: the easternmost bit near Baltimore that leads to a park'n'ride.

I need a life...

[Max Rockatansky]

I've driven US-101 in California (all of it) many times, but until I started organizing my efforts to clinch state highways in California, I never realized there was a dinky little CA-222 in Ukiah. Hopefully, this fall I'll have the extreme thrill of driving those 1.6 miles. Twice. (Zzzzz)

Worse, though, I have an asterisk on my US-101 clinch, due to the Willits Bypass. Last time I drove through there was about one week before it opened. At least I could see most of the new road from the old road, though.

Without intending to do so, I managed to clinch I-70 in a few trips back in the 90's, except for one thing: the easternmost bit near Baltimore that leads to a park'n'ride.

I need a life...

222 is at least weird enough that it is worth stopping to see it.  222 isn't signed with reassurance shields but it has copious amounts of Postmile Paddles and a bridge identification placard at the Russian River.  The terminus in Talmage at the State Asylum turned Buddhist Temple is something you won't see elsewhere.

[kphoger]

Does this count?  I missed a roadgeek opportunity a few months ago:

For long 2di routes...  The only parts of I-35 I'm missing are (1) north of Hinkley, MN, and (2) the southernmost four miles in Laredo.  With never any reason to go to Duluth, though, I don't see a clinch happening anytime soon.  That's about 5% unclinched.

I've never worried much about clinching highways.  But I popped on here to mention that I just added the portion of I-35 from the Mexican border to Exit #2 on Monday afternoon (by taxi).  So I've now clinched 99.9% of I-35 between its southern endpoint and Hinckley, MN.  The only part I'm missing is between Exit #2 and Exit #3A or #3B in Laredo (I can't recall with certainty which exit I took to get to Mall del Norte back in 2009).

And I have a feeling that would drive some of you absolutely bonkers.

[elsmere241]

Then there was the time I thought I'd check out a road in NW Arizona called Cottonwood Road, to see if it connected to Cottonwood Cove, Nevada, just over the Colorado River.  It did not.  And instead of spending the night in my car until I could see my way out, I went in circles looking for the road back and plowed into a wash.

It took me a day and a half to reach relative civilization off US 93.  My car was totaled and the insurance wouldn't pay.

[JayhawkCO]

The only one I can really think of is that the last time I drove through NYC, I would have loved to clinch all of the 3dis there, but with traffic, that takes a long time to do and I already had a 11-12 hour drive scheduled. I don't know the next time I'll be out there.