Roadgeek disappointments

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Last spring I was alerted to a pile of discarded road signs in Taconite Harbor, MN, an abandoned mining company town on Lake Superior. I drove the 4 hours one way, but without knowing where on the town's footprint (it was demolished after the company idled in the mid-80s) I searched through the townsite, getting soaked from the day's rain and wet ground. Eventually I found the pile and it held nothing of interest; the signs themselves weren't even that old, some dating just to 2004. A mile marker that caught my eye had mud and dirt congealed onto it and unable to be removed to reveal the number. It was a major fail.

What are yours?

[wanderer2575]

Driving out of my way to a route terminus, hoping to get a photo of an END assembly, and there is none.

Hoping to get a photo of a good sine salad, where multiple routes multiplex and/or intersect, but the signage is such that it doesn't really make for a good photo (multiple signposts not together, some routes not signed, etc.).

[formulanone]

There's been at least a dozen times I've driven out of the way, only to find the sign was missing or replaced.

The worst is when I marked it in the wrong place altogether (i.e. entirely my fault for going out there).

[jp the roadgeek]

Thinking you clinched a route, then looking at a map later on, and realizing that you took a wrong turn and diverted from said route for a few blocks, which means you didn't clinch it and you have that little mini-gap to finish it (especially if that route is far from where you live).

[Max Rockatansky]

Two years ago I was staying in Blanding, UT and had just been at Natural Bridges National Monument.  My plan was to get up at sunrise and head out early to the Moki Dugway.  I was aware UT 95 was largely open range to UT 261 so I was ready to keep an eye out for deer.  Just I was pulling onto UT 95 a herd of deer jumped over the fence line and I had to choose to either ditch into a small ravine or hit one of them.  I ended up hitting one of the deer and smashing up the front end of my car which pushed in the radiator.  I kept my car running for a good 30 minutes to determine if there was any leaks and continued on my way.  I ended up driving the Dugway and a bunch of other scenic highways like US 163, AZ 64, AZ 89A, and CA 2 on the way home with a smashed up car.  The trip wasn't a fail but it was pretty shitty that that I hit a deer 2 miles from my hotel on the one mile of UT 95 that actually had animal fencing.

[plain]

In 2001 my pop's house burned to the ground. I had numerous pictures and maps there (over half of my collection at the time), all destroyed.

[kurumi]

This was 1992 or so, before Google Maps existed, or online plans: just an article in the paper some months back that the interchange at US 7 and the Merritt Parkway was complete.

I had seen the 15/25 and 15/8 interchanges earlier (both pretty cool by CT standards), and was intrigued to see what the ConnDOT treatment would be for a full 4-way freeway/parkway crossing.

Drove about 90 minutes to see... this.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Just two words: craIG county.

Anyway, for actual driving disappointments, there was that time I wanted to drive a highway which is usually full of trucks, and just as I was about to turn into it one passed in front of me. And since I didn't want to drive behind that truck (the highway is just a regular 2 lane road), I decided to take another route. I finally clinched that highway, and thus the entire route between Madrid and Barcelona, two years later and without getting stuck behind a truck! (I did it on a Sunday, when there are less trucks on the road )

[abefroman329]

In 2001 my pop's house burned to the ground. I had numerous pictures and maps there (over half of my collection at the time), all destroyed.

Sorry to hear that. I lost a number of irreplaceable items in an apartment fire in 2003, including all of the photos I took in college.

[abefroman329]

When ghost ramps are torn down.

[jon daly]

Reading an atlas as a kid and seeing huge exit numbers. Then, learning as an adult that a lot of states use mile based systems and that there aren't hundreds of exits off of I-40 in Tennessee.

[WillWeaverRVA]

Driving out of my way to a route terminus, hoping to get a photo of an END assembly, and there is none.

Hoping to get a photo of a good sine salad, where multiple routes multiplex and/or intersect, but the signage is such that it doesn't really make for a good photo (multiple signposts not together, some routes not signed, etc.).

Yup. My wife was not very happy when she drove us up to the north end of NC 12, only to find that the END sign was gone. It had been blown away during a hurricane and was never replaced.

[TheStranger]

- the replacement of the "Bayshore Freeway" text on the Next-3-exits sign from 280 north in San Francisco with "Junction US 101"
- Route 1 not being signed on Rice Avenue in Oxnard even several years after the highway officially moved to that street
- Route relinquishments in general in California as that usually leads to trailblazers completely disappearing (i.e. Route 82 south of 880 in San Jose, Route 238 along Mission Boulevard).  On that same vein: traversing a state route that is very poorly signed (Route 221, Route 128 between Route 121 and Winters, Route 18 east of Palmdale).
- More recently: trying to go on a route I haven't been on in ages (Route 85 between 101 and 280)...only to miss the offramp from 101 north because I misinterpreted the exit signage.

[Brandon]

Reading an atlas as a kid and seeing huge exit numbers. Then, learning as an adult that a lot of states use mile based systems and that there aren't hundreds of exits off of I-40 in Tennessee.

For some of us, it was the opposite.  Seeing the sequential system for the first time in Florida in 1985, I thought we were only a half hour from Tampa when I saw my grandparents in Winter Haven, the east side of Winter Haven.

[AsphaltPlanet]

For me, it's either when I travel looking for button copy that has either been replaced since the streetview camera came along (this happend at the US-101/199 junction in northern California), or, more likely, if I screwed up taking a photo of something years ago, only to go back again years later and find out that what I came back to photograph has now been replaced.

[J N Winkler]

For me it is mostly enormous, slow-to-download ZIP or RAR files that I think are going to contain thousands of pages of construction plans for a large highway project, only to find a few very large GeoTIFF files, followed closely by advertisements for projects whose bids have already been opened and whose plans (following the policy or practice of that particular agency) are no longer available online.

Badly drawn (i.e., not pattern-accurate) signing plans are no longer as common as they used to be.

[lepidopteran]

When you finally bring a camera to get a picture of a vintage "Yield Right-of-Way" sign, and find that it's been replaced with either a STOP sign or a conventional MUTCD-compliant Yield sign.

[OracleUsr]

When Dana and I were returning from Wilmington via I-40 back in April, I had my camera prepped for the "Barstow, Calif. 2654 mi" sign just past the beginning of I-40...no such luck.

I was on I-95 one time in SC and thought I saw a text STOP AHEAD sign and turned around at the next exit, returned to Hardeeville and back to the exit in question...it was a two-way traffic sign.

[CtrlAltDel]

Reading an atlas as a kid and seeing huge exit numbers. Then, learning as an adult that a lot of states use mile based systems and that there aren't hundreds of exits off of I-40 in Tennessee.

Well, if it makes you feel better, there are about 175 exits off I-40 in TN (more or less, I didn't count exactly), which, while not exactly hundreds, is still quite a few.

[sparker]

- the replacement of the "Bayshore Freeway" text on the Next-3-exits sign from 280 north in San Francisco with "Junction US 101"
- Route 1 not being signed on Rice Avenue in Oxnard even several years after the highway officially moved to that street
- Route relinquishments in general in California as that usually leads to trailblazers completely disappearing (i.e. Route 82 south of 880 in San Jose, Route 238 along Mission Boulevard).  On that same vein: traversing a state route that is very poorly signed (Route 221, Route 128 between Route 121 and Winters, Route 18 east of Palmdale).
- More recently: trying to go on a route I haven't been on in ages (Route 85 between 101 and 280)...only to miss the offramp from 101 north because I misinterpreted the exit signage.

Concur on all counts.  And yes, the CA 85 exit from NB US 101 in SE San Jose sort of "sneaks up" on you these days, at least when it comes to the original semi-directional general lanes exit; the HOV lanes are announced loud and clear.  This is typical D4 B.S. -- but at least they semi-fixed the suspension-rattling "bump" on the main NB 85 ramp at the end of the 101 flyover -- it's now producing just a slight "shimmy"!

[adventurernumber1]

When I was a young child, before I had ever really seen an atlas and was informed on numbered highways, I thought that US Highway 41's northern terminus was here in my own town of Dalton, Georgia (even though it is actually very, very far away in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan). This is because when I asked my mother (perhaps around the age of 5) where Highway 41 went going north, she said it ended at the North Bypass. She was actually talking about Thornton Avenue (the street name and physical road) ending at the bypass. Also, US 41 (along with US 76 and GA 3) is actually designated on the bypass now, and Thornton Avenue is not even US 41 anymore, but it was designated as such at one time. Now that I have much more knowledge on maps, I realize that US 41 is a very long highway, and Dalton (my town) is just one of many, many different towns and cities that have US 41 running through them. At the time, as a young kid with much less knowledge, thinking that US 41 didn't go past the northern bypass of my town, it was a very massive disappointment to me. It saddened me greatly thinking that that was the end for US 41, and it didn't seem right or good, especially as a young child fantasizing about no road ever ending. Since US 41, at one time, was designated on Thornton Avenue and Old Dixie Highway in my town, when other people in my town say "Highway 41," they are usually talking about those roads when concerning the part of the highway within Dalton city limits (if they are talking about the highway farther out in the country, they are usually accurate in calling the right road Highway 41). My mom must have simply meant Thornton Avenue's northern end terminated at the bypass, but she called it "Highway 41," so that is why I thought she was talking about US 41 as a whole. When I finally found some road atlases and became more informed on numbered highways, I was very, very happy and surprised (because I had believed otherwise for so long until 8 or 9) to find out that US 41 actually went on for a long ways after Dalton, and in both directions that is. When looking through those maps, I was very excited to find out everywhere that US 41 did go, and where it actually terminated on both sides (northern and southern).

Thankfully, more recently, in the era where I have been able to film and snap pictures of roads with my own phone (the past 6 years and continuing), I have usually been fortunate in not having too many disappointments. I am having trouble thinking of significant disappointments I felt from seeing a new road or road-related thing on a roadgeek level, but most of my disappointments have been technical and logistical (i.e. failed pictures and videos, the camera not focusing in, accidentally missing roads or sights, mistakenly deleted road videos or photos, and that sort of thing). These happen frequently but are usually small, and they are inevitable, since they are errors and things going wrong which are to be expected at least every once in a while. On a roadgeek level, I have usually not been disappointed too much over the years, but my misinformation with where US 41 ended may have been the most significant roadgeek disappointment in my lifetime that I can recall at this moment, even though it was when I was a young child. Also, I think there have been many times when I wanted to get filmography and photography of a road at a certain point during a construction phase, but I was too late to get the footage of the exact status that I wanted, and that has brought disappointment to me when these things have occured, but I was still glad to get whatever I did end up with, even if it wasn't the phase I had prepared and hoped to film before it was gone. I've also been disappointed in myself for the occasional time that I might fall asleep and miss something because of that, due to severe fatigue or sedation (typically in the morning).   

[abefroman329]

When Dana and I were returning from Wilmington via I-40 back in April, I had my camera prepped for the "Barstow, Calif. 2654 mi" sign just past the beginning of I-40...no such luck.

Signs like that are disappearing because people keep stealing them. The one on US-50 in Ocean City that lists the distance to Sacramento is mounted to a bridge.

[hbelkins]

Yes, I've found that a number of roadgeeks are indeed disappointments.   

But seriously, what a number of people have already said. Driving to find something that you missed getting a picture of the first time you saw it, and it being gone (the borderless cutout on US 52 between Aberdeen and Portsmouth being one example..)

And having certain circumstances ruin a picture you're trying to take while on the move in a place where you will probably never ever be again.

And doughnut holes in the visited county map that you may not get a chance to fill in.

[Techknow]

- More recently: trying to go on a route I haven't been on in ages (Route 85 between 101 and 280)...only to miss the offramp from 101 north because I misinterpreted the exit signage.

Concur on all counts.  And yes, the CA 85 exit from NB US 101 in SE San Jose sort of "sneaks up" on you these days, at least when it comes to the original semi-directional general lanes exit; the HOV lanes are announced loud and clear.  This is typical D4 B.S. -- but at least they semi-fixed the suspension-rattling "bump" on the main NB 85 ramp at the end of the 101 flyover -- it's now producing just a slight "shimmy"!

Funny thing about CA 85. I used to drive on I-280, CA 85, US 101 to commute to Salinas so I never missed the exit on the way back. But last week I was heading home from Mountain View, and I missed the entrance on Evelyn Avenue because it was at night and when I saw the ramp I was going too fast to turn 90 degrees!

[jeffandnicole]

When Dana and I were returning from Wilmington via I-40 back in April, I had my camera prepped for the "Barstow, Calif. 2654 mi" sign just past the beginning of I-40...no such luck.

I was on I-95 one time in SC and thought I saw a text STOP AHEAD sign and turned around at the next exit, returned to Hardeeville and back to the exit in question...it was a two-way traffic sign.

They just installed a new one around the corner from me a few years ago.  I wonder how they could still even be making them!