We recently picked up a Washington, DC area map with a General Drafting base dated from 1942. This map may be the oldest we have of the capital city in our collection, and it definitely shows signs of aging having been torn into three separate sections. The fragile nature of the map made scanning it difficult, so we broke down the imagery into a few excepts. Let's take a further [...]
Disappearing from Georgia roads are the signs with the narrow width Highway Gothic series D font and the exit numbers posted above a horizontal rule. These age old standards are going by the wayside as signs with larger Highway Gothic Series EM and external exit tabs are added. Some freeways appear to be resigned whole sale, while other projects focus on a particular interchange, or series of signs. A telltale [...]
Finally getting around to reviewing a day trip we took on May 9 from Pensacola, Florida west to Biloxi, Gulfport, New Orleans and LaPlace, Louisiana. While we have extensively covered much of this region previously, several key projects are underway or were completed in recent years. Let's take a look at a few of them. The drive across Mobile was uneventful and the only work ongoing is a resurfacing project [...]
The last day of our eight day trek through the Upper Midwest took us from the Quad Cities area back to Chicago before heading southward to home. Leaving around lunchtime, we traveled I-74 through Bettendorf and Moline, catching a glimpse of the current utility work being performed in preparation of the I-74 rebuild across the Mississippi River. We then hooked up with I-80 east toward Lasalle and Joliet. [...]
Day 7 of our Midwest/Great Plains trip takes us east from Topeka back through Kansas City and then north to Des Moines before ending the day in the Quad Cities. We started out deciding to explore the Topeka area freeway system with spurs north and south along U.S. 75 before returning to Kansas City to finish our documentation there. Passing through the tri-level stack interchange from Interstate 70 [...]
Continuing with Day 6 of our Midwest/Great Plains trip, we drove throughout Kansas City as peak hour traffic set in, with a path taking us back and forth from the Alphabet loop Downtown to suburbs such as Grandview and Lees Summit. Culminating our trudge through the I-435, K-10 and I-35 construction zone, we departed the area for Ottawa and Emporia, taking the toll-free portion of Interstate 35 to the Kansas [...]
Day 6 of our Midwest/Great Plains trip started out redriving many of the Omaha area freeways, dodging thunderstorms southward to Kansas City, and figuring out how far south to travel in Kansas. This post focuses on our morning drive around Omaha and the first AARoads visit to St. Joseph since Justin took photos here in 2003. More button copy remains in service along Interstate 680 around the city [...]
Day five of our Midwest/Great Plains trip took us from a start in West Fargo southward along the I-29 corridor to the Council Bluffs, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska area. A cloudy and drizzly morning appeared to be setting the stage for another murky day, but as it progressed, the clouds finally lifted resulting in a great day to explore some roads. Construction is underway along Business Loop I-94 & U.S. [...]
Day four saw the end of our sojourn to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area as it was time to move onward to our next destinations. On this day we traveled along I-94 to Fargo, North Dakota where we hooked up with I-29 north for Grand Forks and a stop near the Canadian border. Fargo remained on the scope as the resting place for day five. Drivers are afforded panoramic [...]
Continuing our week-long travels through the Upper Midwest, day three consisted of a loop from the Minneapolis/St. Paul area south on Interstate 35 to Albert Lea, across I-90 to La Crosse and Portage, north along the I-39 & U.S. 51 corridor to Wausau and a return to the Twin Cities by way of Wisconsin 29 and I-94. The first leg of the nearly 750-mile loop took us south along Interstate [...]
