Strangest reason you HAVEN'T clinched a highway

[NWI_Irish96]

"Weird Al" Yankovic is the reason I haven't clinched I-94.

The story: In 2000, I did a solo road trip from Chicago that took me to Yellowstone and back, going out mostly via I-94 and back mostly via I-90. At that time, long before this forum or TravelMapping, I was somewhat of a road geek but hadn't really thought about the concept of highway clinching. I took a different route back so that I could visit South Dakota for the first, and to date only, time. Piling up interstate mileage wasn't in my mind at all.

"Weird Al" had a song called "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota." As a result, my path from Minneapolis to St. Cloud took me along US 12 and MN 15 to said twine ball instead of on I-94. Fast forward to 2024 when I eventually drove the Grosse Point to Port Huron segment of I-94 and left the Minneapolis to St. Cloud segment as my only remaining unclinched segment.

[Max Rockatansky]

Back in 2010 I didn't get a chance to finish CA 282 and CA 75.  The reason I didn't get the clinches that year was due to the fact that I got hit by a car while I was out on a run in Coronado.  A driver blew a stop sign trying to cross 75 and didn't see me in the crosswalk.  My left forearm was shattered, I had several broken ribs, asphalt tar caked into part of my face and a concussion.

I have since clinched both state highways.  Work has continuously brought me back to San Diego County in the last two decades. 

[pderocco]

Back in 2010 I didn't get a chance to finish CA 282 and CA 75.  The reason I didn't get the clinches that year was due to the fact that I got hit by a car while I was out on a run in Coronado.  A driver blew a stop sign trying to cross 75 and didn't see me in the crosswalk.  My left forearm was shattered, I had several broken ribs, asphalt tar caked into part of my face and a concussion.

I have since clinched both state highways.  Work has continuously brought me back to San Diego County in the last two decades. 

That's spooky. Back in the 90s I got hit by a car while on a group skate one night, right at the intersection of 75 and 282. Fortunately, I just had the wind knocked out of me.

[pderocco]

In October 2022, I ordered a car from a dealer in Massachusetts, intending to do a one-way cross-country trip with it. I picked it up, drove it around for a couple days, and when I was on Cape Cod clinching route 137, a truck in front of me stopped, put it into reverse, and backed into me at about 5mph, totalling the car. The insurance completely covered it, so I bought another of the same model in October 2023, and finally did my cross-country trip. But I didn't clinch 137 until October 2025.

[Max Rockatansky]

Back in 2010 I didn't get a chance to finish CA 282 and CA 75.  The reason I didn't get the clinches that year was due to the fact that I got hit by a car while I was out on a run in Coronado.  A driver blew a stop sign trying to cross 75 and didn't see me in the crosswalk.  My left forearm was shattered, I had several broken ribs, asphalt tar caked into part of my face and a concussion.

I have since clinched both state highways.  Work has continuously brought me back to San Diego County in the last two decades. 

That's spooky. Back in the 90s I got hit by a car while on a group skate one night, right at the intersection of 75 and 282. Fortunately, I just had the wind knocked out of me.

I was hit a block over at C Avenue and 4th Street (CA 75).  The driver who hit me was heading south on C Avenue. 

[kphoger]

The only section of I-35 south of Hinckley MN that I haven't clinched is the <2 miles between Exit 2 and Exit 3B in Laredo.  That's because my clinch from the Mexican border to Exit 2 was by taxi from Nuevo Laredo, so I didn't have control over which route the driver took, and he got off I-35 two exits before my previous southernmost point.

[DandyDan]

Does the fact a segment of a highway is closed when I wanted to drive it count as a strange reason? If so, that's the reason I haven't clinched I-535 and MN 246.

[Max Rockatansky]

Does the fact a segment of a highway is closed when I wanted to drive it count as a strange reason? If so, that's the reason I haven't clinched I-535 and MN 246.

That's the reason I haven't finished CA 173 and 39.  I've walked a bit of both of them but the closed segments are pretty lengthy.  I much rather go hike somewhere on an actual trail if I'm going to commit a dozen miles on foot into something.

[TheCatalyst31]

Back in 2021, I visited Sioux City, Iowa, in part because I hadn't been to either Nebraska or South Dakota yet and I figured I could knock both out at once. I took I-129 into Nebraska, but I got off at the first exit to get gas, since that gave me an excuse to say I set foot in Nebraska instead of just driving through it. I then drove into South Sioux City and back over the river instead of getting back on I-129, leaving me a mile short of the clinch. I've since been back to both Nebraska and South Dakota multiple times, but I'm still missing that mile of I-129.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

WIS 77, because we didn't realize it went to the Michigan state line. We turned off at US 51 after driving it all the way to Hurley from the MN line.

[Scott5114]

WIS 77, because we didn't realize it went to the Michigan state line. We turned off at US 51 after driving it all the way to Hurley from the MN line.

I'm not sure that counts as a strange reason to not clinch a highway. I've blown multiple clinches that way. Not realizing M-28 extends east of I-75 is my most painful one. But I've done it no less than three times in Nevada not realizing that NDOT likes to have highways officially extend over a freeway by a bit so all of the exit ramps intersect on state property (whereas Oklahoma tends to kill them at the midpoint of the bridge). Fortunately it wasn't too hard to go back and clean all of those up.

[Dirt Roads]

Since I hardly ever set out to intentionally clinch a route (generally did this as a historical lookback), I'm still kicking myself about intentionally trying to clinch Maryland's infamous I-97 a few weeks after the Old Mill Road traffic signal was removed to complete the Interstate corridor.  But I was late getting away from Philly that day, and approaching Baltimore in the early rush I decided to take the scenic route (the former Key Bridge).  As soon as I hopped off of the Baltimore Beltway onto I-97 southbound, I looked in the rearview mirror and realized my mistake.

Chalk this one up as a route that I've driven the entire length but some of it before it was renumbered.

[pderocco]

This reminds me of another one. As I mentioned, in October 2023, I did a cross-country trip in my new car, purchased in Massachusetts. I had carefully planned a trip which included clinching I-40, which I had driven much of back in the 1990s. This included filling in a gap between I-95 and I-85, along with a much bigger stretch between I-30 and US-191. Some time later, I found some additional logs I had kept of my 1990s travels, including a dog-eared AAA Atlas with highlighted routes I had driven, which showed I hadn't actually driven I-40 between I-95 and the end in Wilmington. I had been right there a few years go, and could have clinched it had I spent a few hours driving down and back. So it's still on my bucket list, along with a couple remaining pieces of I-95 in FL and SC.

[1995hoo]

In 2006 when we were coming home from Ottawa, we were approaching the southern end of ON-416 at ON-401. We were heading to the Thousand Islands Bridge and while I didn't need the sat-nav for directions, I had it on mainly for estimated travel time. For some reason, it wanted me to take the ON-16 exit ramp and then immediately exit to the right onto 401, even though 416 has a direct ramp to 401. I thought about going the direct way, but I was curious whether there was any sort of interesting reason why it wanted me to go the other way (short answer: none that I could discern). So I don't have a clinch of Ontario 416 because of that. And naturally I haven't been back there since then to remedy it. The last time we went over the Thousand Islands Bridge was in June 2019 and we headed the other way towards Kingston and ultimately Toronto.

[vdeane]

I still have clinched (haven't even been on) I-295 in VA because I wanted to see the series finale of Once Upon a Time.  When I was driving down to my cousin's wedding in Jacksonville, FL in 2018, the plan was to stay near Richmond, do a loop of the NW side of I-295 in the evening while picking up dinner at a Wawa, but traffic was so bad that I got there two and a half hours later than planned.  With just enough time to get in my hotel room before the show started, I ended up cutting out dinner.  Since I hadn't eaten that evening, I ended up doing something for breakfast the next morning (which I normally skip when on the road), and ended up cutting I-295 to make up for the time, as I had a deadline for getting to Jacksonville.

[DandyDan]

From another category of strange, it took my grandma dying and for me to drive my own car to finally clinch the Minnesota section of I-90. Grandma (and Grandpa) lived in Lismore, about 10 miles north of I-90, and importantly for this story, 1 mile west of MN 91. If we were going east, we went south on MN 91 to Adrian, where we got on I-90. However, if we were going west, which typically meant going to Sioux Falls, SD, we cut across country to the Magnolia exit and went west on I-90 there. We always missed the highway between the Adrian and Magnolia exits. Grandma died, we go to the funeral in Lismore, but I have a hotel room in Luverne (next exit west of Magnolia), so I took the interstate back.