1972-73 living in the Lauderdale Lakes area of Broward County, Florida. I-95 was just getting completed in the area. As a young child in the 1970's I loved seeing new roads. Well I-95 had opened but not completely yet. Well we were traveling on it and the workers were taking a break. Well I WAS NOT HAPPY with that. I wanted my road done and done NOW. So I yelled out the window at them to get back to work. Yes at 5 years old I realized I was a road geek.
I've always been a roadgeek, but I didn't know it until high school.
We were near what had once been the border between East and West Germany, on the west side of the line. This was the summer of 1999, and my family was being driven by a German man and his son in their RV; he had driven these roads a few times over the years, and I had never been to the region at all. My mom pointed out to him that he'd missed our turn a little bit ago. 'How do you know?' he asked. She replied, 'Because Kyle says so.' (We had.)
I didn't know what a roadgeek was until college, but I was drawing road maps by age 3.
I always liked maps and by age 5 I was giving my parents directions. I'm sure by that point I was demanding in advance to know whether my dad was going to use "Cars Only" or "Cars-Trucks-Buses" on the Jersey Turnpike.
In the second grade my teacher didn't like it that I "drew little badges on the numbers" on math assignments (when the number was one I knew like 495, 270, etc.).
at age 5, I attempted to trace I-495 along the east coast using the individual Rand McNally pages. there it was in Boston. And again in New York City. so how did it ever get between those two??
I still remember the license plate number of a car my grandparents sold by 1984, when I was 3.
(it is Hungary RS 54-55, for those wondering.)
Well, yeah, I was doing roadgeek stuff as a young child. I made license plates for my Big Wheel. I looked out the window on drives and doodled road signs. Et cætera. But when were you first aware of your roadgeekdom?
probably whenever I found MTR, which was around 2001 or so.
Quote from: kphoger on August 14, 2012, 09:13:36 PM
Well, yeah, I was doing roadgeek stuff as a young child. I made license plates for my Big Wheel. I looked out the window on drives and doodled road signs. Et cætera. But when were you first aware of your roadgeekdom?
Bah, you just obsolesced my long, nostalgic response with that. Probably the mid 90s when I guided my family to and from the beach and they bought me maps. I realized it was a hobby at that point.
Signs never really interested me (sorry sign mistake guys). The actual construction and routes to this day do. Love seeing a well built and well designed highway and interchange. Nothing gets me boiling more than seeing a project done on the cheap. Either do it right or don't do it at all. I would rather have 2 well done projects than 10 done on the cheap.
Holding the maps and atlases at the age of 5-6 on our trip to sunny Florida from Tennessee, and being "in charge of it". Learning what the directions meant, what the road numbers signified, where and why those squiggles and lines meander or join up in places. (Not to burst anyone's bubble, but it probably meant our fathers' wanted us to participate a little in some long drive, either to keep us quiet, create some father-son bond, or chattering so that he wouldn't fall asleep on long interstate drives.) Boys (and some girls) are also fascinated with large machinery, equipment, building, construction, demolition; especially at a really young age.
Probably the crossing over into roadgeek territory was when I started highlighting the all routes I drove on, around 1995 or so, with penciled notes about when I'd driven each segment. I started noticing the sign stuff along the way; no two really seemed alike. I just wanted to see...what was over there, and what did it look like?
Started drawing road signs and maps at age 4... on MS Paint.
Started giving directions at age 5.
At 4 I drew a road map of my neighborhood on the inside cover of my Charlie Brown Dictionary.
In Kindergarten my career goal was to be a cartographer.
When our school flooded in third grade I made a map of each "pond" and "stream" caused by the flooding, naming them after teachers and administrators.
In fourth grade my teacher gave me a box of old National Geographic maps that the school library was going to throw out.
Around age 7, possibly on hockey road trips along CT 66, I-91, and CT 15.
Roll out about 6' of butcher paper, draw a city of Matchbox-size streets; use cardboard for overpasses, and Q-tips for sign gantries.
Quote from: kurumi on August 15, 2012, 02:08:54 AM
Around age 7, possibly on hockey road trips along CT 66, I-91, and CT 15.
Roll out about 6' of butcher paper, draw a city of Matchbox-size streets; use cardboard for overpasses, and Q-tips for sign gantries.
Now that's a moment of genius.
Likewise I found out that the wide masking tape was exactly the right width to create a two-lane road with no shoulders for Hot Wheels cars. Cardboard signs on toothpick gantries followed.
It was probably when I was a kid, about 1st grade or so, and I would go along with Mom and a horde of different relatives to her garage sales. In order to give me something to do, they let me be the navigator. Sometimes, I would lead them deliberately out of the way just to see stuff. Not long after that, I was making my own maps, some of them of imaginary places. Of course, I didn't know the term "road geek" existed until 6 years ago.
When I was really young–not sure quite how old (did it for a while)–I taped 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper end-to-end and crayoned roads on them. A five-lane, median road was about as wide as the paper, maybe an inch on each side left. Probably my first (or a really early one) was Cottman Ave/Township Line Rd (mostly PA 73) from Greenwood Ave all the way to 95*. Not too accurate, though (for example, I-95 was a sea of lanes: exactly how three-to-four in each direction seemed to me.
Then I got my Matchbook cars and drove them on my roads, only to find that I had trouble maintaining enough width. :P
I still have a good-sized bin of them, all rolled up, in storage. :)
Looking back, I guess that was the first verification of official roadgeekdom.
*http://goo.gl/NNmS0 (http://goo.gl/NNmS0)
I guess it was around when I started looking through Steve's website and I've first seen the term.
I knew I was into roads for as long as I can remember, but I didn't know the term roadgeek until I was in middle school. Someone posted a photo of a guide sign gantry to a SimCity forum, I looked on google images for more sign pictures, and stumbled on Upstate NY Roads (http://www.upstatenyroads.com/).
I think it hit me seriously in the late 90s. I had been interested in cars since before I can remember (I learned to read by reading nameplates off the back of cars), and once I knew how to read fairly well my Dad got me a subscription to Car and Driver.
When we moved to Idaho in 1997, my parents got a 1996 Rand McNally that I started studying, and I remember shortly after that I'd go through the Car and Driver magazine and read the letters back to the magazine and trace the routes where people came from to various places.
I think my first exposure the the roadgeek community was when we got internet in about 1999 or 2000, and at some point I searched for road signs and stumbled upon Elkins' Milleniumhighway site. In early 2001 my Dad and I drove a Jeep from North Carolina back to Idaho and I remember really getting into looking at the road signs beforehand on the internet. Until I got my license in late 03, I didn't do much more than browse maps and occasionally roadsign pictures, and then I started getting into driving highways in early 2007.
By late 2007 I realized I wanted to share that with others, and started posting on MTR sporadically in late 2007, but my real involvement didn't take off until 09 when this forum opened shop.
Probably freshman year of high school (1997) when I discovered some road geek sites on the web and realized there was a name for people like me who were totally into maps and highways and stuff. I think Kurumi's site is the first one I remember. I used it to pretty much memorize all the 3di's (and discover the ones that didn't appear in Rand Mac at the time.)
That's when I realized that this wasn't just another passing phase like dinosaurs or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I knew this would be a part of me for the rest of my life.
Also, who had a "Car City Carpet" when you were a kid? I had one, too- it was a city map with buildings on carpet.
Quote from: NYYPhil777 on August 15, 2012, 06:28:00 PM
Also, who had a "Car City Carpet" when you were a kid? I had one, too- it was a city map with buildings on carpet.
I had a plastic mat with roads and signs on it. I drove that mat to pieces, so my parents got a second one, and I drove that one to pieces as well.
I had one as well, although I was more into cars at the time.
Probably when I was nine or ten, reading signs along the Thruway on weekend family trips (sometimes out loud--much to my parents' chagrin) and looking through my grandparents' 1971 Rand McNally atlas.
I was drawing car designs and maps for various fictional places in elementary school. I was probably fourteen or fifteen when I first stumbled on roadgeeking sites.
My father can tell you a story from when I was about 3 years old where I was in the passenger seat of his car (where I always insisted on being) and a friend of his was in the back seat. He mentioned where he was going and I out of nowhere said something along the lines of "oh, go three more lights and make a left". His friend at first thought it was cute. But his smile then turned into a shocked stare when he realized that I wasn't just playing - I was fully aware of where we were and how to get to where we needed to be going. At 3.
Of course, while my skills for navigation have been exceptional as long as I can remember, at a young age my obsession was more with maps than with roads. And with trains, but that's another matter.
I remember when I was in middle school (1999ish), my mother came to me one day and said there was this website out there that had lists of every exit off of every highway. That was a mistaken exaggeration, it turned out, but the website she had found was NYCRoads and there were indeed links to exit lists on it. I subsequently spent plenty of time browsing around that and similar websites, reading up on things... heard about MTR, but never ventured there. After all, I wasn't allowed to talk to people online without my mother's supervision (hey, I was like 12!).
As I went to college in The Bronx, my roadgeekiness went into a bit of remission in favor of obsessing over trains. Partly since I did not have regular access to a car, but the subway was there anytime I wanted it. And partly because politically favoring transit seemed kinda cool at the time.
But then there was a series of turning points. January of my senior year, this forum came into existence and a certain someone who shall not be named posted about it on another forum I frequent. So I registered. And gradually, I started talking to people here. Then, that summer, I got my own car as a college graduation gift and was for the first time in my life free to drive wherever whenever. And then, that fall, I noticed that a road meet was happening only an hour or so from where I lived, so I decided to check it out, not really knowing what to expect... and the rest is history.
The first time I was aware of it was on a family trip to Colorado when I was 7. I found myself drawing pictures of freeway signs-particularly exit signs and mileage signs. Then on another trip to Colorado a couple of years later, I checked out a Rand McNally atlas from the library so I could follow our trip on the map. For Christmas that year, my parents got me my first atlas-an H.M. Gousha(I always did like it better than Rand McNally). When I was 12, I planned out our family's 2 week trip to the Pacific Northwest. With a little help from an older brother, I printed out on our family's computer a daily itinerary that specified how many miles we would drive that day and what route we would take, what sights we would see, and where we would spend the night. Of course, I wouldn't have actually called myself a "roadgeek" until years later when I found some roadgeek-related websites and saw people using the term-and I knew I definitely was one.
I was ten years old and we had just moved to a new house for the first time that I actually remember. I was riding my bike around the new neighborhood and accidentally took the wrong street to get back to my house. Realizing my mistake, I resolved to get a map to better familiarize myself...the rest is history.
(That's the pivotal moment, but not the only one. I had been falling asleep to road and world atlases while listening to my father practice the piano since earliest age; both became irreversibly instilled in me. Many years later, about 1997 I discovered that the Internet allowed me to pursue what I thought had been my own isolated interest in maps and roads; that happened while I was earning my music degree. I still relish any opportunity to ply my profession whilst travelling the byways of America. I actually think the two are related, but I haven't yet found the way to explicitly articulate it.)
When I was in Kindergarden, for whatever reason I noticed that my teacher had a Commercial Survey Red Book of Lake & Geauga Counties. She actually let me take it home, though I made the tactical error of doodling in it (much to the horror of my mother). I had to apologize to the teacher for doodling in her book, but this started my interest in roads and maps.
I was for years, as far back as I can remember, reading maps and drawing cities, and of course, being the navigator on trips (that, I picked up from my father - he could even be considered a closet roadgeek as an urban planner with an affinity for maps himself). I learned of the term; however, when I was in college, maybe 1996 or so.
I had some mats, plus a few I drew myself on large sheets of paper.
As a kid, coming back from Wells, ME to central Connecticut...I seem to remember having some sort of a traffic light-styled pull chain, which you'd have on the end of a chain for maybe the ceiling light in the bathroom. Also, I remember buying my first RM Road Atlas at the age of 13. More on this as my mind becomes less foggy. :)
Curious if anybody else had a relative that they took after in being a roadgeek. From the time I was little, I was said to have taken after my grandmother in that. She was never into it as much as I was, but she loved to travel and enjoyed using the maps to plan trips and navigate for my grandfather on trips. She also used to do trip diaries while on vacation-something I used to do too when I was little. I eventually got all of her trip diary books-going back as far as a trip she and my grandfather took in 1941. My grandparents were AAA members too, so they'd always get maps and tourbooks for every trip-all of which they saved. They'd also often pick up state highway maps on their trips. All of this was kept in one file cabinet drawer-needless to say, when I was little I spent a lot of time going through that drawer.
Quote from: amroad17 on August 15, 2012, 08:11:50 PM
Probably when I was nine or ten, reading signs along the Thruway on weekend family trips (sometimes out loud--much to my parents' chagrin) and looking through my grandparents' 1971 Rand McNally atlas.
My brother and our cousin and I used to do that, also out loud, when riding in my grandfather's car in Brooklyn going around the Belt Parkway to and from Breezy Point. But the wrinkle was that we read the signs
exactly as they appeared–the sign reading "Coney Is Ave," for example, was pronounced just like it looks; "Ocean Pkwy" would be pronounced like "Ocean Pick-way"; etc. My mother must have wanted to smack us hearing all that day after day, year after year, especially because we didn't just
say what the signs said, we yelled it out in unison as little boys are prone to doing. (Although had she tried to smack us I would have pointed out that it was her father–i.e., the grandfather with whom we were riding–who had gotten us started doing it, so she should have been mad at him.)
My grandfather died in 1991, but to this day I
still think "Coney Is Ave" whenever I travel on that road.
Something else I forgot when I posted before: When I was in the fourth grade we had an assignment to draw a map of a fictional place and then use "landmarks" on the map to give "clues" to a "treasure hunter" who would use your map to "find" something (basically the idea was just to give directions to see if someone could "navigate" using your map). Everyone else focused on putting in things like landmarks and the like and then saying "go north at the mountains, then go east at the lake," etc. I focused on filling in roads wherever I could fit them. (I also vaguely recall my island being shaped like Pac-Man, but that's another issue. It tells you the time period, certainly.) Funny, as I type this I'm remembering another mapping assignment in high school when we had to make up a map of the island in Shakespeare's
The Tempest. That time I didn't include any roads at all; instead I tried to provoke the teacher by giving all the places pop-culture names like "the Cliffs of Huxtable," the "Strawberry Fields," etc. I seem to recall her not taking umbrage.....that time, anyway. I remember getting in trouble when I wrote a short story that had a man named Maxwell Edison using his silver hammer to fight the Knights in White Satin.
Checking the age of some. I feel sorry for the younger generation who didn't get to see the road boom of the 60's and 70's. I came of age at a time to see many roads get completed in the early 70's.
It started after I got my driver's license at age 16, and particularly when observing the reconstruction of Shirley Highway in Arlington VA in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Probably after I found the original Roadgeek Yahoo group. I'd been interested in roads and signs for a long time, but the Internet made easier for me to find like-minded people.
Quote from: 1995hoo on August 16, 2012, 09:14:31 AM
I remember getting in trouble when I wrote a short story that had a man named Maxwell Edison using his silver hammer to fight the Knights in White Satin.
:lol: As I'm finding with my kids, they enjoy taking songs exactly in context, or mis-hearing lyrics just as I am wont to do. Seems like an epic battle, though.
Quote from: formulanone on August 16, 2012, 10:26:19 AM
Quote from: 1995hoo on August 16, 2012, 09:14:31 AM
I remember getting in trouble when I wrote a short story that had a man named Maxwell Edison using his silver hammer to fight the Knights in White Satin.
:lol: As I'm finding with my kids, they enjoy taking songs exactly in context, or mis-hearing lyrics just as I am wont to do. Seems like an epic battle, though.
Don't want to take it too off topic here, but I knew the song was not "Knights in White Satin." I just couldn't resist punning on the name because it was too perfect for what I was writing. The teacher wasn't annoyed at me for changing the song title, she was annoyed at my putting puns and pop-culture references into what was "supposed to be a serious assignment." I recall she also said "there were no surnames in medieval times." (Man, I had forgotten all this until this thread made me remember that stupid map of the island. Too bad I don't have a copy of it somewhere. I'd scan it. I spent a lot of time drawing that dumb thing.)
Misheard song lyrics could be a whole 'nother thread on the "Off-Topic" subforum.
As far back as I can remember, I could have been termed a "roadgeek". At a very young age, I was given the official title of navigator for all family trips, as I excelled at reading road atlases, and had a great sense of direction. I've been known to argue with the GPS in my wife's car, when I know where I'm going and it insists on taking me on a slightly different route.
One time my grandmother thought she was being smart by asking me if I knew the way to San Jose because the song came on the radio. I don't think she expected me to know that it was such an easy trip from NYC, being that I-80 takes you almost all the way there :)
Like many, I drew my own road maps, many based on things I had seen on family trips. I still have a few of them in a folder somewhere at home.
I never sleep well in moving vehicles, so I always paid attention to what I was seeing along the road, and enjoyed seeing new roads completed, like I-95 through Florida, etc. Now I go back on some of these same roads on trips, and I'll remember back when it didn't exist, or changed drastically.
On some of our family trips from Hampton Roads to Syracuse, my father always relied on me to get around Wilmington, DE--usually finding US 202 north from US 13. This was before I-495 and LONG before I-476 were built. Plus, there always seemed to be some sort of detour to US 202 in Wilmington that my dad missed one time because I was asleep.
I don't know when I would have first heard the term "roadgeek" to know that I was one. But I do remember the first time friends or someone on a trip caught me writing down stuff from exit signs on the interstate. I'd have a notebook with the exit numbers on the far left in the margin then write the sign info and draw the highway shield and number.
I believe it started with mass transit. I was riding our city's light rail, buses and metro from a young age. I remember trying to collect the light rail and subway and all the bus schedules just to look at the maps. I was especially excited when they came out with the citywide map with every bus route on it. I didn't get into roads until I was about 10 or 11, when I took my first trip to South Carolina. I didn't know where I was going exactly but I memorized it. After that I started drawing roads on paper, with signs, signals and everything. I also recall reading through a road atlas, but I don't remember which one it was. The second time we went to South Carolina, I knew the way by heart, and even the parts that were cloudy to me came back. That was when I knew, but the term didn't come to me until I was a teenager. By that time I was known as the human GPS by my family.
I've been into roads since as long as I can remember...
As for knowing I was a "roadgeek" (term-specific), thank Kurumi. B)
I thought I was just a weird individual that knew a little too much about signs and maps. I didn't know there were others until the day I searched for the name of the street I lived on at the time in Google. It was an obscure rural road, and its only claim to fame was its I-35 interchange. So the only thing that popped up were I-35 exit lists. One of those was Eric Stuve's site... you mean not only is there someone who likes signs as much as me, but he's photographed them all so I can look at them??
Quote from: Scott5114 on August 17, 2012, 08:20:59 PM
I thought I was just a weird individual that knew a little too much about signs and maps. I didn't know there were others until the day I searched for the name of the street I lived on at the time in Google. It was an obscure rural road, and its only claim to fame was its I-35 interchange. So the only thing that popped up were I-35 exit lists. One of those was Eric Stuve's site... you mean not only is there someone who likes signs as much as me, but he's photographed them all so I can look at them??
Oh, yeah, Eric Stuve is how I am able to live with myself. I might be a roadgeek, but I'll never approach the level of Eric. :happy:
Quote from: kphoger on August 18, 2012, 11:10:31 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on August 17, 2012, 08:20:59 PM
I thought I was just a weird individual that knew a little too much about signs and maps. I didn't know there were others until the day I searched for the name of the street I lived on at the time in Google. It was an obscure rural road, and its only claim to fame was its I-35 interchange. So the only thing that popped up were I-35 exit lists. One of those was Eric Stuve's site... you mean not only is there someone who likes signs as much as me, but he's photographed them all so I can look at them??
Oh, yeah, Eric Stuve is how I am able to live with myself. I might be a roadgeek, but I'll never approach the level of Eric. :happy:
The standard unit for roadgeekiness is the milli-Eric. Mr. Stuve himself is 1000. Alex and Andy are in the high 800s. I'm 553. (Carl Rogers is NaN.)
Quote from: kurumi on August 18, 2012, 01:34:20 PM
Quote from: kphoger on August 18, 2012, 11:10:31 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on August 17, 2012, 08:20:59 PM
I thought I was just a weird individual that knew a little too much about signs and maps. I didn't know there were others until the day I searched for the name of the street I lived on at the time in Google. It was an obscure rural road, and its only claim to fame was its I-35 interchange. So the only thing that popped up were I-35 exit lists. One of those was Eric Stuve's site... you mean not only is there someone who likes signs as much as me, but he's photographed them all so I can look at them??
Oh, yeah, Eric Stuve is how I am able to live with myself. I might be a roadgeek, but I'll never approach the level of Eric. :happy:
The standard unit for roadgeekiness is the milli-Eric. Mr. Stuve himself is 1000. Alex and Andy are in the high 800s. I'm 553. (Carl Rogers is NaN.)
Where is the mE calculator so I can find out my own measurement?
I wish to find my own standing as well with this milliEric measurement method.
Who exactly is Eric Stuve? I'm assuming he's a big roadgeek. :bigass:
Quote from: kphoger on August 18, 2012, 01:52:17 PM
Quote from: kurumi on August 18, 2012, 01:34:20 PM
Quote from: kphoger on August 18, 2012, 11:10:31 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on August 17, 2012, 08:20:59 PM
I thought I was just a weird individual that knew a little too much about signs and maps. I didn't know there were others until the day I searched for the name of the street I lived on at the time in Google. It was an obscure rural road, and its only claim to fame was its I-35 interchange. So the only thing that popped up were I-35 exit lists. One of those was Eric Stuve's site... you mean not only is there someone who likes signs as much as me, but he's photographed them all so I can look at them??
Oh, yeah, Eric Stuve is how I am able to live with myself. I might be a roadgeek, but I'll never approach the level of Eric. :happy:
The standard unit for roadgeekiness is the milli-Eric. Mr. Stuve himself is 1000. Alex and Andy are in the high 800s. I'm 553. (Carl Rogers is NaN.)
Where is the mE calculator so I can find out my own measurement?
Quote from: kj3400 on August 18, 2012, 02:23:19 PM
I wish to find my own standing as well with this milliEric measurement method.
Thirded on the finding out my milliEric measurement. Though I guarantee I'm > 200, as I haven't been doing actual "roadgeeking" (taking photos, taking road trips for the sole purpose of roads, etc.) for more than a few years.
When I first discovered MTR in the late 1990's and saw that everyone on there was talking about the same sort of roadly stuff that I was curious about.
I was a Road Geek from an early age (about age 7). I thought seeing all those freeway-to-freeway interchanges on I-94 through Detroit were so cool. And I was a big reader of the Rand McNally Road Atlas by the time I was 8. Now I've graduated to Road Trip Geek, where my knowledge of what's at each exit falls somewhere between Sheldon from "The Big Bang Theory" and Rainman.
Having met Eric Stuve, I'm a little surprised he would be at the top of the scale. He doesn't seem nearly as bad as some I've met/know/know of.
I would spend hours looking at the road atlas when I was 5. Also as far back as 5ish, I knew my way around and would tell my Mom (who's terrible at directions) where to go, even though I couldn't drive of course. I would memorize important exit numbers, etc. I always watched The Weather Channel because I liked seeing the maps :D Also I became really interested in weather for a while, possibly because of that. I always liked talking about roads with my Dad (he's a somewhat road geek too). SimCity was and is one of my favorite games. The first time I found AAroads (not the forums) a couple years ago, I spent hours browsing all the photos. The first time I found this forum (not long ago), I spent many more hours helplessly browsing all the threads. Yeah, there's a lot of signs :P
Quote from: Steve on August 19, 2012, 08:19:32 PM
Having met Eric Stuve, I'm a little surprised he would be at the top of the scale. He doesn't seem nearly as bad as some I've met/know/know of.
Oh, no, he's not. What we are commenting on is that he is pretty damn dedicated to get a photo of
every single exit he passes. Considering he has done trips of several thousand miles before, keeping up that level of consistency is, frankly, admirable.
Plus, it's really useful. There have been times I need the exact text of a sign for a Wikipedia article. I don't even bother with Google Street View, I go straight to OKRoads.
I had never heard of the term "roadgeek" until I joined misc.transport.road
HOWEVER, my first roadgeek memory came was when I was 5 and I argued with my parents on how to get from Nags Head, NC, back to Raleigh. They wanted to stay on the same road, which was US 264. I knew better. I didn't know at that time how big a difference it would have made had we stayed on 264 (having been on that road to the Outer Banks twice, I now know), but I knew US 64 was the way to go. I was of course right.
Quote from: Scott5114 on August 19, 2012, 11:11:30 PM
Quote from: Steve on August 19, 2012, 08:19:32 PM
Having met Eric Stuve, I'm a little surprised he would be at the top of the scale. He doesn't seem nearly as bad as some I've met/know/know of.
Oh, no, he's not. What we are commenting on is that he is pretty damn dedicated to get a photo of every single exit he passes. Considering he has done trips of several thousand miles before, keeping up that level of consistency is, frankly, admirable.
Plus, it's really useful. There have been times I need the exact text of a sign for a Wikipedia article. I don't even bother with Google Street View, I go straight to OKRoads.
Yes, the captions of his OKroads (and don't forget OKhighways) photos are only moderately roadgeekish. I totally agree with the usefulness of real-world photos of exit signage. The only problem is, construction projects happen, layouts change, signs change, and then I'm left looking for a more recent photo. Oh well, you can't have everything.
I didn't know I was a roadgeek until high school, but I looking back I was into highways, and actually transportation in general, from 3 or 4 years old. Much of my childhood was spent making traffic lights out of legos, building overpasses and flyovers out of blocks, using Kinex as guard rail, and building a freeway through the hallway of my house for my toy cars. It was numbered highway 77, and it used a California Spade shield(of course, I didn't know the differences in highway classes at the time, I just had always like the California State Route Shield.) I also remember that it was a single direction freeway five toy-car lanes wide, and I used rectagular blocks and put them on their side to form sound walls. I couldn't make bi-directional because a 10-lane toy car freeway would have taken up like 80% of the hallway. :-D
EDIT: Yes, I know, why didn't I just make 2 lane per direction freeway? Well, I'm from South Bay/Long Beach, and hadn't really seen anything other than classic Los Angeles 10 lane freeways at the time...
I'm not a road "geek" (the only things I "geek out" about are cars and guitars) but I've been interested in roads and maps since I was probably 6 or so.
Quote from: kphoger on August 20, 2012, 10:20:50 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on August 19, 2012, 11:11:30 PM
Quote from: Steve on August 19, 2012, 08:19:32 PM
Having met Eric Stuve, I'm a little surprised he would be at the top of the scale. He doesn't seem nearly as bad as some I've met/know/know of.
Oh, no, he's not. What we are commenting on is that he is pretty damn dedicated to get a photo of every single exit he passes. Considering he has done trips of several thousand miles before, keeping up that level of consistency is, frankly, admirable.
Plus, it's really useful. There have been times I need the exact text of a sign for a Wikipedia article. I don't even bother with Google Street View, I go straight to OKRoads.
Yes, the captions of his OKroads (and don't forget OKhighways) photos are only moderately roadgeekish. I totally agree with the usefulness of real-world photos of exit signage. The only problem is, construction projects happen, layouts change, signs change, and then I'm left looking for a more recent photo. Oh well, you can't have everything.
Yeah, the websites are a bit out of date (OKHighways in particular is full of pictures from the circle sign era) but you can often find a more up to date photo on his Flickr feed.
I have some newer pictures of circle signs. They're rare now, but there are some out there. There are a couple on I-40 near Webbers Falls, several on US 69/75, some at OK 51 and Sheridan, and some in downtown Tulsa.
Quote from: Scott5114 on August 20, 2012, 09:29:59 PM
you can often find a more up to date photo on his Flickr feed.
I know. I just find it nigh impossible to easily search his Flickr pages. The old webpages are nicely laid out, for the most part.
Quote from: Riverside Frwy on August 20, 2012, 07:06:52 PM
... Much of my childhood was spent making traffic lights out of legos, building overpasses and flyovers out of blocks, using Kinex as guard rail, and building a freeway through the hallway of my house for my toy cars. It was numbered highway 77, and it used a California Spade shield ...
I wonder if your CA 77 was longer than the constructed part of real CA 77 :-)
Quote from: bugo on August 20, 2012, 10:22:23 PM
I have some newer pictures of circle signs. They're rare now, but there are some out there. There are a couple on I-40 near Webbers Falls, several on US 69/75, some at OK 51 and Sheridan, and some in downtown Tulsa.
I wonder if the 18" (!) OK-3 circle that ScottN and I found in Nov '09 is still around.
When I was a child, I used to draw maps on the back of the church bulletin, while in church.
Quote from: Mike_OH on August 21, 2012, 02:12:11 PM
When I was a child, I used to draw maps on the back of the church bulletin, while in church.
Well, yeah, how could this refer to anything
but a highway interchange?
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1092.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fi410%2Fkphoger%2Fcross.gif&hash=a3a8020ed52c1a5ade9b39bc84f83245dcfc28de)
It means... some kind of roundabout volleyball with a lane drop bottleneck from the '70s.
And it's hilly, so you have those "keep two dots apart" signs. :)
Either you weren't enough of a roadgeek to tell that that would fail from minute one, or you just wanted to draw a bottleneck interchange.
:-D
Life long roadgeek here, though I didn't learn about the actual term until a few years ago. And I still prefer to call myself a "highway enthuasist".
At the age of 2, I taught myself to read by reading highway signs (it was the early 60s, so there weren't any graphic signs yet). And I was drawing roads (with signs) on paper at age 4, and making paper signs and mounting them on overhead supports made from Ideal Super City pieces at the age of 7.
By age 8, I was the only person in the family my father would trust (apart from himself) with the road maps when we went on trips. And what trips they were. Some of my earliest memories of those days include crossing the then newly-opened second span of the Deleware Memorial Bridge, driving through the construction zones for building the original "dual-dual" roadways on the New Jersey Turnpike, and later on - the widening of the Wilbur Cross Highway (now I-84) between Hartford and Sturbridge.
Quote from: roadman on August 21, 2012, 05:11:04 PM
At the age of 2, I taught myself to read by reading highway signs (it was the early 60s, so there weren't any graphic signs yet). And I was drawing roads (with signs) on paper at age 4, and making paper signs and mounting them on overhead supports made from Ideal Super City pieces at the age of 7.
Much the same here. Apparently "EXIT" was the first word I could read. (Which made road trips fun, with me shouting "exit" every time we passed a sign.)
At the age of 10 or less, probing my Dad about whether he was SURE he hadn't seen a California route marker older than the bear signs, when he finally snapped, "Oh, you mean the ones with the Spanish Conquistadors?"
Quote from: Scott5114 on August 19, 2012, 11:11:30 PM
Oh, no, he's not. What we are commenting on is that he is pretty damn dedicated to get a photo of every single exit he passes.
There's another site that has something just like that. I think it's called AAARoads?
My brother is 14 months younger than me and my mom would draw maps on cut open paper grocery bags for my matchbox cars to keep me occupied. My family would travel from NJ to Jacksonville, FL to visit my moms family at least once a year... more if there were weddings of funerals. I would stay up most of the night watching roads and getting excited about things like the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel. I have been a roadgeek all my life but it really was pointed out to me in first grade when we went to the Planetarium at Ocean County College for a class trip and because of forest fires the road home was closed( CR 549/Hooper Ave-Brick Blvd)... One of the teachers asked me an alternate route home... I of course told her to take Route 37 across the bay and then Route 35 back home.. I think she was just making me feel good by asking...I am sure the bus driver knew the way
But I remember feeling like i saved the world
Quote from: Kacie Jane on August 21, 2012, 08:32:39 PM
Much the same here. Apparently "EXIT" was the first word I could read. (Which made road trips fun, with me shouting "exit" every time we passed a sign.)
Apparently "STOP" was one of the first words I could read, and I would blurt out "STOP SIGN" everytime I saw one.
Quote from: jwolfer on August 23, 2012, 11:53:35 AM
My brother is 14 months younger than me and my mom would draw maps on cut open paper grocery bags for my matchbox cars to keep me occupied. My family would travel from NJ to Jacksonville, FL to visit my moms family at least once a year... more if there were weddings of funerals. I would stay up most of the night watching roads and getting excited about things like the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel. I have been a roadgeek all my life but it really was pointed out to me in first grade when we went to the Planetarium at Ocean County College for a class trip and because of forest fires the road home was closed( CR 549/Hooper Ave-Brick Blvd)... One of the teachers asked me an alternate route home... I of course told her to take Route 37 across the bay and then Route 35 back home.. I think she was just making me feel good by asking...I am sure the bus driver knew the way
But I remember feeling like i saved the world
That reminds me of how I would direct the bus driver for 6th grade summer camp to try to save a minute here or there.
Quote from: Steve on August 27, 2012, 07:43:33 PM
Quote from: jwolfer on August 23, 2012, 11:53:35 AM
My brother is 14 months younger than me and my mom would draw maps on cut open paper grocery bags for my matchbox cars to keep me occupied. My family would travel from NJ to Jacksonville, FL to visit my moms family at least once a year... more if there were weddings of funerals. I would stay up most of the night watching roads and getting excited about things like the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel. I have been a roadgeek all my life but it really was pointed out to me in first grade when we went to the Planetarium at Ocean County College for a class trip and because of forest fires the road home was closed( CR 549/Hooper Ave-Brick Blvd)... One of the teachers asked me an alternate route home... I of course told her to take Route 37 across the bay and then Route 35 back home.. I think she was just making me feel good by asking...I am sure the bus driver knew the way
But I remember feeling like i saved the world
That reminds me of how I would direct the bus driver for 6th grade summer camp to try to save a minute here or there.
LOL! In seventh grade, I was already helping bus drivers try to figure out how to navigate the Loop.
I was born and raised in New Jersey. I have seen a lot of BGS's and freestanding trailblazers a lot of my life - in the car, on the school bus (to educational center The Forum School because I have been a high-functioning autistic since age 2.), or any other vehicle. Many times the bus drivers in the past who bussed me to school cinched Route 20 to and from it. It's one of my favorites and when I move back there I'd cinch it again to relive it.
I knew pretty much each route by shield. Besides Route 20, I have taken Routes 46, 80, 21, 3, and the road nearest to my former Clifton home 19 a lot. I also rode in the car along the Garden State Parkway, also close to home. (Proof: my exits were 154 and 155P!) I knew Route 17 (aka Old Irksome due to the fact that traffic can be crazy there) through TFS field trips and the rare trip to Van Saun Park in Paramus and Route 23 through trips to Chuck E. Cheese's in Wayne. Occasionally, the family would take the Turnpike for out-of-state trips and Great Adventure.
I remember one time drawing a pretty much rough map to the airport (Newark Airport to be exact) to fly to where I currently live. I'd show my family which roads to take (Broad Street to Grove Street, then Route 3 East, then Route 21 South, and finally to Route 1-9 to the airport). I used to draw maps a lot in childhood.
I was fascinated by the signs and shields as a child and the New Jersey Turnpike's trailblazer was the most fascinating, with the Garden State Parkway's coming in a very close second. I love the former to bits - it's a green hexagonal shape, bordered in white, with that white "TP" in the middle. Each time I see it on the web through flickr, or my own photos I snapped on summer 2011, I get motivated to save money for a sojourn there or even (and preferably) move back!
Whenever someone asks me about only one thing that reminds me of my childhood, I'd tell them that it's the NJTP shield. It represents me as a Jersey girl.
When as a child, I was building road systens with my toys and in the sand box, even using Legos to build traffic light systems.
Quote from: roadman on August 21, 2012, 05:11:04 PMAt the age of 2, I taught myself to read by reading highway signs (it was the early 60s, so there weren't any graphic signs yet).
Same here!
Quote from: dave19 on October 18, 2012, 01:21:13 PM
Quote from: roadman on August 21, 2012, 05:11:04 PMAt the age of 2, I taught myself to read by reading highway signs (it was the early 60s, so there weren't any graphic signs yet).
Same here!
Me too! (well, in the late '60's)
My parents figured out by the time I was 4 that the easiest way to shut me up on a car trip was to hand me a map!
Quote from: US81 on October 18, 2012, 02:40:11 PM
Quote from: dave19 on October 18, 2012, 01:21:13 PM
Quote from: roadman on August 21, 2012, 05:11:04 PMAt the age of 2, I taught myself to read by reading highway signs (it was the early 60s, so there weren't any graphic signs yet).
Same here!
Me too! (well, in the late '60's)
And me too, in the '50's. I amazed my parents with the skill and their praise encouraged me to read, out loud, the contents of every sign I saw. They soon gave me the map and made me responsible for navigation--just to shut me up.
Quote from: kphoger on August 14, 2012, 09:13:36 PM
Well, yeah, I was doing roadgeek stuff as a young child. I made license plates for my Big Wheel. I looked out the window on drives and doodled road signs. Et cætera. But when were you first aware of your roadgeekdom?
I only became
aware that I was a roadgeek when I realized most other people weren't--and that my obsession with roads sometimes annoyed people. I think this was sometime between ages 13 and 18, but I had been fascinated by road maps and intersection/interchange designs since before age 10 (signs came sometime later). I'm pretty sure I hadn't heard the term "roadgeek" until after I turned 18.
For the record, houses came first (age 5)--mostly floorplans, but I also drew front elevations. Hotels and shopping malls worked their way in there at some point, probably also before age 10. Roads stuck harder than anything else, though.
My first exposure to maps was at age 3. I found my grandmother's ADC maps of some of the Maryland counties. I taught myself how to read with the maps. At age 4, I first made the connection that the roads in real life were the roads represented on the map. I was rising with my mom on US 1 (Belair Rd) in Overlea, Baltimore County and City. At age 5, I told my grandmother how to accurately get from her house to the airport.
I first realized that my interest in maps and roads was not common when I was in third grade. We had an assignment to draw a map. I got really excited and modeled my map after the ADC map but made the buildings bigger. Of course, this was above and beyond what she wanted! I loved to draw maps as a kid. I drew a map of my neighborhood and of the imaginary world where my stuffed animals lived. I was always watching out the window, looking at the roads, reading every sign. I remember telling my dad to take US 113 to Ocean City for different scenery :)
I first learned I was a roadgeek in 1998. My family got the Internet the year before, and I was curious if anyone had made websites about roads. Yes they had! The three sites I frequented most were Scott Kozel's Roads to the Future, Mike Pruett's MDRoads, and Kurumi's site. Years later, I discovered many others, plus that other roadgeeks met up and had road meets! I used to look at the meet pictures longingly, wanting to attend so badly! And now here I am...
November 30, 1997 (I was 13 at the time). When I first saw Barnwell County's new signs posted along my street. I was none to pleased with the signs, most of which are still there.
Then, came signs in Allendale County in 2001 - same feeling of displeasure.
Since then, I have been comparing signs in neighboring counties with ours.
Nice to know that 12 years and 16 days later (on 12/16/2009), the feds shared my disdain.
On a lighter note...I now have maps of Aiken and Orangeburg counties, as well as all 13 Georgia counties in the CSRA.
Other maps and atlases I have include:
Asheboro/Randolph County
Lumberton, N.C./Robeson County
Marion County
Spartanburg County
Lexington County
Greenville County
Anderson County
Walterboro/Colleton County
Saint George/Dorchester County
Florence County
Columbia/Richland County
Savannah/Chatham County
Beaufort County
Charleston County
Moncks Corner/Berkeley County
Quote from: stridentweasel on October 20, 2012, 11:07:34 PM
Quote from: kphoger on August 14, 2012, 09:13:36 PM
Well, yeah, I was doing roadgeek stuff as a young child. I made license plates for my Big Wheel. I looked out the window on drives and doodled road signs. Et cætera. But when were you first aware of your roadgeekdom?
I only became aware that I was a roadgeek when I realized most other people weren't--and that my obsession with roads sometimes annoyed people. I think this was sometime between ages 13 and 18, but I had been fascinated by road maps and intersection/interchange designs since before age 10 (signs came sometime later). I'm pretty sure I hadn't heard the term "roadgeek" until after I turned 18.
For the record, houses came first (age 5)--mostly floorplans, but I also drew front elevations. Hotels and shopping malls worked their way in there at some point, probably also before age 10. Roads stuck harder than anything else, though.
Same here as to drawing homes (with floorplans and elevations), but roads came before homes and buildings to my interests.
Supposedly the first words I "read" were gas station signs -- I could point out every different brand of gas. (Probably I was noticing the shapes/logos instead.)
I remember seeing "TO US 2" signs in Canada and finding the broken route on a map -- I was probably only 7 or 8 years old.
My roadgeekdom started quite abruptly in 1965 when GDOT (OK, it was the Highway Department then) started using a new metal bridge guardrail design (http://goo.gl/maps/5RFzo) that, to my seven year old eyes, looked way cooler than the previous one (http://goo.gl/maps/2eaZC). Not too long after that, Popular Science ran an article about several then-new highway safety breakthroughs, and I was able to see them being used on new projects and, little by little, retrofitted to older ones. that led to noticing how highways differed from each other, and that different states did things differently.
As for knowing that "roadgeek" was the correct word for what I am, that came when I first got online in 1996 or so and found www.cyburbia.org while looking for planning and transportation related stuff. It's gone now, but one of the subforums was called, "For Roadgeeks Only." At that moment I knew I wasn't alone. :)
It started for me when my family took a trip to Plymouth, MA. I was fairly young, and I was quite fascinated by an elevated continuous structure that I saw extend out of view. I think that did it.
Plus, later on my 1969 road trip to California I got more into it. We drove all the way from NJ to CA. I remember the SF Oakland Bay Bridge and the tunnel in the middle. I remember the hills of SF and riding the cable cars and seeing them turned around on a turntable. I think that made me.
What was more interesting was 20 years later, when driving myself through the Wheeling tunnels on I-70. I then remembered that I was there before. It hit me, that when I was four I was amazed at the portals of the tunnels on each end. I remember seeing a square portal on the opposite side while an arched one that we were entering then. Then I saw the square portal exiting our tunnel, that prompted me to look back and see if the other side had an arch entering. It did! Then when I saw the two portals on my July 89 trip to Ohio, it jogged that out of me! It must of been part of the plant that led me to being what I am today.
Mine evolved more slowly. I was reading maps and drawing maps at an early age, but it took a trip to Disneyland when I was 13 to turn me into a full-blown roadgeek.
Quote from: NYYPhil777 on August 15, 2012, 06:28:00 PM
Also, who had a "Car City Carpet" when you were a kid? I had one, too- it was a city map with buildings on carpet.
Never had the carpet. But, I did have a garage with a smooth concrete floor. My mother would pull the car out sometimes, and I'd draw chalk outlines of massive highways (mostly freeways that never went anywhere: either I was a sadist, or I just assumed people drove freeways for no other reason). And once I'd finish, I'd start doing construction on them. Turning two lanes into 4, more ramps. Contraflow, etc. Whatever. Pour water on the floor and pretend it was a disaster, let it dry, and then 'rebuild' that part of the city.
As for when I realized. I became aware that it was not normal probably when I started driving a car when I was 16. Up to that point, I had an old RM atlas that I had highlighted every road I had been on (when someone else was driving).. Or at least what roads I thought I was on when they were driving. When I turned 16, I had a new map, and I had transposed all the roads. But, then realized I wanted to only count roads I knew for a fact I was on. And, when I bought another new RM atlas, i decided it would only be roads I had personally driven on. So, i started fresh.
After amassing a huge array of yellow highlighted roads throughout the country, I stumbled upon the Extra Milers Club, and started thinking how many counties I had been in. And, started another atlas with those marked (my method, was to outline the counties I was in, either individually or in blocks, and at their intersection with non-visited or driven counties, I would mark a partial arc at that junction. When I visited the county(ies) opposite it, I could complete the arc into a circle. If I had been in the county but hadn't driven through it, I marked it with an X as well. When I had driven through/to it, I then circled the X. Previously, I had numbered each county in each state by order of achievement. But, had stopped doing that when I REALLY started hitting counties. I take about 2-3 trips a year now just to hit counties and see new parts of the country. Sans Alaska and Hawaii, I'll be done with the contiguous 48 in about 5 years. Alaska and Hawaii are going to be special 'extended' trips with the wife.
One thing I don't understand, though, is road signs. I understand a lot of road geeks enjoy them and discuss them. And I appreciate their usefulness and question their decisions (and like pointing out mislabeled ones, like the PA shield in Michigan), but it's not that important to me. And I detest button-copy due to their lack of reflectivity at night with headlights. I don't really care for clearview one way or another, but a road sign has to serve its purpose. And that's to be seen and convey data to the driver. Old faded signs do not.
Quote from: oldblue910 on October 18, 2012, 10:09:20 PM
My parents figured out by the time I was 4 that the easiest way to shut me up on a car trip was to hand me a map!
That's exactly what my parents did. And that's exactly when I became a road geek.
2 or 3. I imagined cities with hot wheel cars when I was a kid. Had imaginary roads in my head. I even had stupid little Lego pieces I fumbled around with and pretended they were signs and streetlights.
I've been enjoying reading all the responses here. How fun!
Like some others have shared, my roadgeekiness started with maps when I was a kid. I would stare at maps for a long time... just reading them and learning where the roads went. Whenever my dad would travel someplace out of town for work, he would often bring back a map of where he'd been and give it to me. I started collecting maps and got to a point where I would write letters to travel bureaus at different U.S. states to request state maps. At one point, I had probably collected maps for almost every U.S. state. (This was by the late '80s or so.)
With maps, I established a strong sense of direction. I also could navigate many routes and remember one time in particular when my parents asked me to give my grandma turn-by-turn directions over the phone of how she could get to my school for an evening program that I was in. It was funny; I spoke really fast, saying something like "South on Ryan, turn right on Frazho, right on Thomas," and so on. My grandma had to ask me to slow down because she wasn't writing as fast as I was talking. LOL
When I got to high school, I remember going out and visiting college campuses around Michigan and asking my dad the question, "What's the difference between interstate highways and U.S. highways when they're both freeways?" given the fact that we had taken the former U.S. 27 freeway along with a few interstates. He didn't know the answer. Throughout high school, I yearned for the day when I could venture out in my own car and drive anywhere I wanted - just to explore. I was so excited when I was able to take my first relatively long-distance road trip by myself (going off to a university as a high school senior to take tests for scholarships).
Sometime in the fall of 2003 (at the age of 24), I was playing around online looking up information about Michigan's state highway system. I stumbled upon Chris Bessert's MichiganHighways.org website and was captivated. I e-mailed him telling him how impressed I was with his website, and he directed me to the Yahoo group Great Lakes Roads. The time I started connecting with others on that site and attending my first meet in '04 was when I realized I was indeed a road geek. I started by highlighting on a Michigan map all the sections of state highways I'd driven on, but then I later discovered the Clinched Highway Mapping website to start tracking all my mileage. Then the county collecting started as well.
It's been a fun journey, and I haven't looked back!
I had a good way to combine roads and maps as an interest. Back in the golden years when NYSDOT had its own mapping section, they published a series of county highway maps, but also issued a list of each county office where one could obtain their official highway map. I made it a project to visit each office in person to pick up a copy. I maybe made it to 40% or so of the counties before life in general got in the way of finishing the quest.