I've always loved road trips as long as I can remember. That was maybe the age of 4. Around 12 or so I became interested in highway maps and atlases. My mother bought me my first Rand McNally atlas at 13 where I further developed my map reading skills and soon began planning family road trips and was pretty much a full fledged road geek, road warrior and whatever other term you can think of, lol! Even now at 41 I still eagerly await new road atlases to see what new roads and freeways are under construction or built. That's my story, what's yours?
Pretty much my entire life. My Dad was arguably just as into this hobby as me and brought me along with him on much of his travels. I had a small collection of maps, highway sign kits for my slot cars and a ton of other highway/car related toys. At least in the 1980s roadgeek culture was something of a mainstream thing with my adult males in the Mid-West. I distinctly remember my Dad telling me the history of the US Route system and why not all roads were freeways like the Interstates when I was 3.
Earlier than I can remember for roadways and traffic signals. I used to make highway plans on paper and built highways in the sandbox. Familt did not have a car so no road trips
My parents split up when I was 6 years old in 1981 (though they remained friends and still are to this day), and my mom took my little brothers and I and moved us to her hometown of Ashland, KY, which was ~362 miles from my hometown and father's hometown of Nashville, TN. So a good chunk of my childhood was spent traveling I-65, Bluegrass Parkway, local roads in Lexington, and I-64. I know every turn, exit, and vista along that entire route by heart, and I could probably drive it blindfolded. Also, my maternal grandfather (who died way too young at age 72 in 1986), turned me on to Rand McNally Road Atlases, and the KY/OH/WV Tri-State area has many impressive bridges over the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers, which always interested me.
My entire life. I used to read simple road signs when I was very, very young (so my mother says) and point out 2-way and 4-way stop signs. Earliest road trips were from southern Indiana to eastern Kentucky when the Mountain Parkway still had tolls. Always loved them as my parents did as well.
16, when I started driving, and observed the Shirley Highway reconstruction underway in Arlington, VA.
Pretty much my whole life. Back in the 1960's when I was about 8 years old, I was fascinated by the charts my father would make to plan our family trips, as well as the notes that were taken during the trip. They were done on paper, being in the pre-spreadsheet (and pre home computer) era. He showed me how to read maps and how his charts were made.
Every year he would get a new set of maps from AAA and started handing down the old ones to me. I was hooked.
As long as I can remember, and even before then. One of my earliest memories is sitting in a 1981 Buick station wagon and being a passenger going around a ramp on a cloverleaf interchange. Apparently, I would bury my head in maps at age 3, so much that my family had to intervene and attempt to diversify my interests. Those constant trips along the Taconic State Parkway between my boyhood home on Long Island and our family's cabin near the northwest Catskills also helped.
Basically as long as I can remember. I started memorizing the street map of my town back when I was a little kid. I remember when I was 10 years old and home sick with fifth disease, my mother got me an atlas of all 50 states, and I absolutely loved it. I got really serious about roadgeeking as a hobby when I was in high school, after discovering Steve Anderson's web sites such as NYCRoads.com. I started work on my site, which would become East Coast Roads, in August 2003 at age 16.
As a really young kid, I found freeways fascinating because we didn't have any within an hour of our tiny town. I recall trips to Milwaukee where the route alternated between freeway and not freeway. It's a trip that evolved a lot over my youth; MKE from the northwoods via Oshkosh & Stevens Point. I distinctly remember asking my dad when we were going to get back to the freeway while traveling the then two-lane US 10.
It was probably about that time that I encountered my first Rand Mac. That was cool, but by the time I was about 10, we got our first Delorme atlas of Wisconsin and then I really got into the details of everything.
By now, the road trip to and from Milwaukee always had some section of construction as US 41 started to get freeway converted and US 10 started getting four lanes. The four lane expansion of US 51 between Merrill and Tomahawk really captivated me probably because I saw it the most. Seeing that construction and poring over the maps, I made all the connections about what lines meant what in theses atlases and how this was part of a much larger system.
I think what really locked it in for me was the family getting updated atlases and maps and then I basically took over the old ones and started my first fictional musings. This was middle school era for me, right in the heart of WisDOT's "Corridor's 2020" program where four lane highways were going in all over the state, so the combination of all of that hooked me even before I discovered my first roadgeek website.
That entry was provided by Kurumi's 3di articles. It was my first taste of highway history and how things were planned and built or canceled. Here I am a couple decades later, still in it and still spending spare moments drawing fictional ideas and debating the merits of road projects with all you people.
Probably my whole life I remember I could name every street along Bay Road in Saginaw from Court Street all the way to Freeland Road, a distance of about 7 miles or so when I was 4 years old. Then it turned to knowing all the exits on I-75 between Saginaw and downtown Detroit. Then knowing every overpass between Saginaw and Flint, I know it all the way into Oakland County now.
My travels as a kid were in my grandma's neighborhood. If you ever look at Saginaw on Google Maps or something that would be the area between Court, Cooper, Bay and Woodbridge. A pretty big area for a 5 or 6 year old to be traveling.
Always liked roads, always liked driving. The photography came when I started taking pictures of BGSes as locators for other shots. Soon the BGSes became the shots. :)
Quote from: ClassicHasClass on October 21, 2019, 09:51:31 PM
Always liked roads, always liked driving. The photography came when I started taking pictures of BGSes as locators for other shots. Soon the BGSes became the shots. :)
I didn't really get into the photo part until the last couple years. I had road photos previously but they were usually just location markers more than anything else for other photo albums. I had a pretty good mix of signs and some notable highways, nothing close to the scale that I have now. Weird part is that I traveled way more then than I do now.
Ever since I started riding in a car. The more I saw, the more I noticed, and the more I noticed, the more interesting they became.
A 1979 family trip from Nashville to Fort Lauderdale to visit my grandparents was the first time I'd seen a road atlas, which sparked an interest in maps, atlases, travel, and of course, automobiles.
When I was all of 1 year old, I can still remember my father's 1939 Plymouth coupe. which was shiny black and kept clean as a whistle. My mother drove a 1953 Buick Special gray/white 2 door post. Of course if I was going to remember cars so well when that young, I also paid attention to the streets and highways they went on. Everything from narrow dirt streets to early post war expressway was seen and noted. Watching how my parents drove and listening to them talk about the "new highway" (101 north of North Bend was rerouted in 1953) further got my interest piqued regarding the subject of transportation.
Airplanes, ships, trains, these were also interesting but cars were #1 to me. I still remember the DC-3 passenger planes which flew out of the North Bend airport. My mother was good about taking us children all around the town to show us stuff while my father handled the rural routes of Coos County. What was missed: Lots of long road trips. My father was a truck driver who put in 12 hour days at a minimum for 6 days a week. He did not have any time for long drives after all that work!
Rick
As a very small kid. We traveled a lot for business and I always wanted to know where we were. So I was handed the road atlas. Then got interested in type of road then majored in geography.
My family did a lot of long road trips when I was growing up. Trips from Indiana to Florida and California, as well as many other shorter trips. Before the age of electronic devices in cars, my entertainment was following our route on the Atlas.
Ever since I began driving at 16, I always tried to take a different route to places I'd been before, to the extent that time and the people with me would allow. In essence, I was trying to clinch different highway segments without really knowing it was a thing or keeping track of it anywhere other than in my head. Once I discovered this site and the Clinched Highway mapping site in my 30s, I put a lot more effort into tracking my travels and trying to clinch highways.
As long as I can remember. As a little kid I'd always read out every single sign I saw on the road and I was pretty fascinated by bridges and tunnels and I'd always draw maps and signs and things like that. I used to have a name for the interchange between VA SR 895 and I-95, as well as SR 195, the "magical bridges". I'd stare at atlases for hours on end and I'd always play games with road related things in them.
Ever since I was about 4 years old. I used to draw roads in the inside covers of my coloring books. I used to make small towns for my die-cast cars. I'd draw roads in the parking lot of the family business and grade roads in the playground.
Later, I'd become fascinated with maps, including older maps to see how things changed over the years. I'd draw fictional maps and take them through time.
After I got my license in '89, I'd take hours-long road trips for the hell of it (you should have seen the look on the Canadian border guard's face when I told him my business in Canada was to "just drive around a bit"). I love taking long road trips or traveling on freeways/highways I've never been on before. I love seeing changes in local roadways like additional freeways or (in MN) new exit numbers finally being posted.
And that 's just the tip of the iceberg :)
I can't remember why I became interested in roads and cartography, but it was when I was four when I became interested.
My brother (who was as interested in trains as I was roads, but that's changed to astronomy (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=25719.0) ) and I made a model town with scale model buildings of my dad's, model train sets, hot-wheels, and hand-drawn roads made my me.
Around the same time, huge changes in Springfield area infrastructure were unfolding, including the first DDI, redoing the US 60/65 interchange, and the creation of new expressways going from Kansas City to the Ohio River Delta.
For me? Probably when mom started her life over and moved us tiny tots from central Connecticut to Wells, ME in 1974. Us twins were 3. My older brother was 5 going on 6 and my sister wasn't even 2 yet. It grew further with a 5th grade field trip to Boston on Thursday, June 3, 1982 (was back in central CT then). Then an old friend of my mother's had the Rand McNally Road Atlas in her car. I followed our route when then same woman took us (me and my twin) up to Litchfield County, CT and crossed the NY border. I wanted to say it was along US Route 44? The ultimate geek out for me was August 25-27, 1989. That trip added NYC, Baltimore, Washington DC, NJ, DE, MD and VA lifetime. It all "exploded" from there! (PA and Philadelphia was in March 1991.) :D
I always enjoyed traveling as a kid and the routes we would take. The next time traveling these routes, I'd notice the details of how these routes would change. It wasn't until sometime in 2002 or 2003 that I came across HB Elkin's millenniumhwy website that I realized there are others out their with the same interests in roads and they are known as road enthusiasts and that it was normal for me to be interested in such things. Thanks HB!
When I was a kid, I lived in Hoboken, NJ - right before it really gentrified. We didn't have much money, but my mother was insistent that I not become a city kid who never left their city, so we took road trips up and down the Eastern Seaboard my whole life. She had been in a nasty rear-end collision before I was born that left the backseat of her "˜82 Celica somewhere around her ears and was terrified after she had me in "˜87 that it could happen when I was back there (and restrictions on child seating didn't really tighten up til the 90's), so I was in the front seat next to her from the very beginning, child seat or not.
I learned to read pretty young and practiced on signs - pretending to "eat" certain signs as a game. Warning signs I'd "spit out" as bad tasting.
When I was about 6, we went on a class field trip to the Liberty Science Center. I distinctly remember sitting up at the front of the bus and, somewhere on NJ 495, asking him if we were getting on the Turnpike to exit 14B. He and the other teacher sitting up front were floored, saying they never met a kid my age who not only took interest in how we got someplace, but also knew how to get there. Being a girl probably threw them off as well - stereotypically, you'd probably think boys would be more into transportation.
I was the map holder and the map studier, and I continue to be. I love the road - love the evolution of roads and history and what they say about the people or the times.
I just remember being about 5 years old and going on a trip to Seattle and noticing that the traffic lights were all black and hung on wires and thinking that was really cool.
Pretty much all of my life, though my inner road geek didn't kick in until summer 1976, when my family took a drive to relatives in southern Virginia. I was just shy of 8 years old. It was then I really started noticing things, like modified guide signs on I-81 in Pennsylvania saying P.A. 106, with just a trace of "U.S." underneath.
I can't recall exactly. We went to Florida when I was 5, before I started school. I was just learning to read - one of the new words on my list from that trip was "POOL", according to my mom. (I don't remember it, but I guessed I was looking for motel signs as we were preparing to stop for the night.) At that time, I didn't know what maps and highways were - I was just along for the ride. In fact, I don't remember much about the roads, just the places we stopped.
By Junior High when we went on a class trip to Washington DC, I certainly had become proficient with maps. My mom gave me a map of the Eastern US to take on the bus. I thought I'd be mocked for having it, but when I got it out once a lot of the other kids wanted to know where we were.
Later the realization that there were "old" roads out there got me much more interested in how and where roads were developed and how they changed.
Probably as long as I can remember. Initially, I was just glad to be in a car (my first memories were of the red interior and dashboard of my mother's '64 Ford Country Squire wagon when I was either 3 or 4 years old); then later it was traffic lights in the area. There were times, I would beg one of my parents to go a certain way in order to see/pass by certain signalized intersections.
At the age of 6, when I first attended day-camp out in Boxford, MA; I started taking a greater notice/interest in roads & highways while riding in a bus/to from camp. This was when I discovered/became aware of roads like US 1, I-95, MA 128, 114, 35, 62 & 129.
In association to the above & at age 7, I started taking interest in road maps... particularly of the local area then later statewide. Although there is an old black-and-white photo of me at roughly 3 years old looking at a Route 66 Station road map that my grandmother/Oma was holding in her hand. Maybe one day, I'll scan that photo & post it; such is in an album & still packed away in storage following last year's sale of my mother's house.
My interest only heightened when I started biking then, years later, driving.
I can remember being entertained by roads as far back as kindergarten or first grade.
I've been interested in roads to some degree my whole life. One of my earliest memories is going down the 500 South-400 South curve in Salt Lake in my mom's Jeep and thinking it was the coolest thing. Around kindergarten/1st grade, I recall making exit lists for I-15 and I-80, and my mind was blown when my dad told me the US 89 in Ogden was the same highway as the one in Salt Lake.
That eventually progressed into reading and drawing maps, and I could draw a map of Utah's interstates and US highways from memory by the time I was in middle school. We started taking more road trips around the west, and on many of these I was in charge of directions, either from a physical atlas or from directions printed off from MapQuest. And I paid attention every time I was in the car; by the time I was old enough to start driving, it was pretty much impossible for me to get lost within an hour of home.
I became interested in old alignments and historical routes after stumbling upon an awesome collection of old Utah photos on Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/countylemonade/albums). I found this forum not long after that, lurking for a few years before finally joining.
Basically as long as I can remember. I was born into a road tripping family, so long trips were a part of my life from the start, and I made it to 48 states before turning 15 (despite not flying in a plane until age 19.) I became interested in maps and road signs not too long after learning to read, and became known by my classmates for my ability to draw a freehand map of the US from memory while still in elementary school.
One thing that really cemented my status as a road geek in my family was when, at age 10, I was thrown the map and asked to navigate after my dad had gotten us lost in the southside of Chicago after dark during a sightseeing side trip into downtown, and I managed to get us out of it and back to our hotel in Joliet. That's become one of those family stories that's gets told over and over again. In the years that followed I became the official navigator for our annual 2 week summer family vacations, provided with a supply of maps and sometimes an official AAA Triptik of our planned route, and would give instructions from the back row seat of our 1991 Ford Aerostar (my little sister always had the middle row seat.)
I always remember being interested in roads and road trips and maps and the like. I think it was originally accelerated by the fact my mother liked to go to garage sales and would take me along. Eventually, I was the navigator as my mom, my great-aunt (her aunt), and various other relatives went to their garage sales. Eventually, they always got the up-to-date Minnesota map, basically for me to look at, and all the other states we ever went to.
My interest became apparent in 2015 when I was getting my Master's in technical communication and was studying design standards for warning labels, wayfinding design, and hazard communication.
I had always liked the signage but became neck-deep in the psychology and design standards used locally and internationally. I fully understood the typography choices, colors, shapes, and iconography.
My interest is a little esoteric and outside of what others get wet about, but for me it's the design.
I even contacted the 511 team about the phone logo.
Quote from: J3ebrules on February 13, 2020, 08:26:36 PM
When I was a kid, I lived in Hoboken, NJ - right before it really gentrified. We didn't have much money, but my mother was insistent that I not become a city kid who never left their city, so we took road trips up and down the Eastern Seaboard my whole life. She had been in a nasty rear-end collision before I was born that left the backseat of her "˜82 Celica somewhere around her ears and was terrified after she had me in "˜87 that it could happen when I was back there (and restrictions on child seating didn't really tighten up til the 90's), so I was in the front seat next to her from the very beginning, child seat or not.
At least the Hoboken waterfront gives you great views!
(https://i.imgur.com/vAWLOwy.jpg)
Better than looking at their City Hall...right?
(https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/ff/d8/72ImJJxQ_t.jpg) (http://imgbox.com/72ImJJxQ)
summer 1994. I was 10 that year, and that was the year when we went on our first big road trip when we went from home to my mom's sister's place in alabama to the grand canyon and back home again. I brought lots of books with me but I spent _a lot_ of time looking at the scenery outside the window and following along with the aaa triptik my parents got when they were planning this thing out. this was also back when you could plan everything through aaa from your route to booking hotels.
it not only got me interested in the interstates in general but always looked to take the road as an option whenever possible. last year was probably the most epic trip that I made road tripping out to los angeles and coming back home going through oregon just because I was out there, hadn't been there yet, and didn't forsee an opportunity to road trip out there anytime soon.
As long as I can remember, I have been fascinated with roads, maps, and license plates. As a kid, I would scarf up every free map at every gas station we stopped at. I had an extensive collection of maps that I filed in shoe boxes. I wish had kept them when I left home. I still have part of my license plate collection, but sold most of that.
When we took road trips, mom would give us an outline map of the states, and a box of stickers. When we saw a license plate of a given state, we would put a sticker in the state on the map.
I took over as the navigator for our family trips around age 9.
Back in the early 80's, someone sponsored a contest where you had to answer a bunch of obscure questions using the Rand McNally Road Atlas. (I don't remember any specific questions, but it would be something like, "if you are traveling east away from I-65 and go through the town of Maple, what is the next town you would come to?", or harder). My roommate and I entered and we were among the winners (tied with a bunch of people for third place, if I recall correctly). We got a little pewter (or pseudo-pewter) cup as a prize.
I am proud to say that my daughter has inherited my love of maps - they even played a part in the table decorations at her wedding.
I first got interested in roads & roadtrips at age 7, back in '72 (apologies to Bob Seger). First, we made a couple of trips to look for a house in the Toledo area (we settled in Perrysburg, right by the I-75/I-475 triple-decker). Right about that time, we also made our first long road trip to St. Louis. I was fascinated not just with the road trip, but all those freeway-to-freeway interchanges, especially driving thru Detroit (I was a Metro Detroiter at that time, as I am today).
By age 8 or 9 I was studying the Rand McNally Atlas quite closely, so I guess that's when my roadgeeking started.
I still love taking roadtrips today. I'm one of those who can guide you around Michigan, parts of Indiana and Ohio, and up the 401 to Toronto or QEW to Niagara almost blindfolded.
QuoteAt least the Hoboken waterfront gives you great views!
My "favourite" waterfront view was in Delaware, when I was stopping at Fox Point State Park in Wilmington for somewhere to eat my take-out. On an otherwise nice day in November my first view of the Delaware River was a big garbage barge.
Been interested in roads and bridges all my life. Started reading road maps at the age of four when I discovered a 1949 Rand McNally atlas in my parent's credensa. My true inner roadgeek was first triggered on a 1967 road trip to Annapolis, when I saw the stack interchange on I-84 outside of Hartford. At the time, it had full overhead sign gantries - with blank sign panels - at the exit ramps, and full luminaires along all the ramps.
By the age of seven or eight, on long road trips I was the only other family member my father trusted with the road maps, and to hold on to the toll ticket when we used turnpikes.
For me, it was back when I was about 9 years old. For a few years, we were doing driving trips both ways between the Lancaster, Pa., area and South Florida, where my grandparents and uncle had lived. I am an only child, so I did not have anyone to fight with in the back seat, so I was looking at maps and Trip-Tiks and staring out the windows. With I-95 having several gaps at that time, I saw a lot of different types of roads and other highway features in our travels.
I was reading up on a local route and its history, and wondering why it and its old alignment were disconnected. Then I thought about extending the road back along its original alignment.
I've been interested in roads / road signs and stuff since I was a kid. So much so that when I was a kid in the late 70s / early 80s, a cousin of mine got me a stop sign that she actually removed from a pole on a road somewhere. (I still to this day don't know exactly how, where or WHY she did this for me, even as a kid I figured it was hella illegal, LOL!)
And before the age of Google Maps I would buy roadmaps / books of all sorts of places. Mostly from where I had traveled, both in Canada and the States, but also of locations that I had never visited (and still haven't to this day).
I love the road memories I've had. Memories like being driven on Highway 402 before it was completed to London in 1982. I remember us going off the freeway about 2/3 of the way to London (where it still ended) and then taking a two lane highway the rest of the way. I also had a road trip to Washington DC with my relatives when I was about 10, and being obsessed with the tunnels we drove through on the way. Also me and my cousins going "Whee!" every time we encountered a sharp curve on the road. And I remember us being stopped at a traffic light in DC that seemed to last for five minutes.
Man that was a fun bout of nostalgia for me.
Emile
My whole life. I remember my mother printing out wikipedia pages for state highways in MA as she didn't want me reading wikipedia.
I've been a map and geography geek my whole life. I collected maps from gas stations and state info centers as a little kid and would design highways on the old ones that would put FritzOwl to shame when the new editions were out. I memorized nations' capitals for fun; I knew all the state capitals at 7. I ended up majoring in geography and worked as a cartographer, so it worked out. My dad loved maps, so I'm sure I picked it up from him.
When I was in North Dakota as a little kid, we traveled quite a bit through Canada and the northern states (back in the 70's when you didn't have a hassle traveling into Canada and back).
When we moved to NC in 1975, my dad's family lived mostly in Tennessee and we went there about once a quarter. I became fascinated with road signs in particular (those who have ever seen my FB page know this) and have been quite an adventurer since I learned to drive. Not to mention I went to school in SC and spent part of my time as a co-operative education student with IBM in Atlanta. Gotta pass those 4-6 hours each way somehow, right?
Quote from: Hwy 61 Revisited on February 20, 2020, 12:18:04 PM
I was reading up on a local route and its history, and wondering why it and its old alignment were disconnected. Then I thought about extending the road back along its original alignment.
Ok, so the obvious question - which road? US 61, as your avatar shows, or a different one?