More weekend strangeness...

After a lengthy daytrip today, I found more to add to the strangeness category:

- Sprawl up the wazoo in northern Stafford County. The SR 610 corridor was thick with it.

- A VDOT-installation red left arrow signal, at SR 610/SR 648 in Stafford County. Strange because VDOT's standard has long been a normal red ball for left turn signals.

- Numbered bike routes in southeastern Culpeper County.

- Froggie's "requisite gravel roads" (it's almost a requirement for me to wind up on a gravel road on my roadtrips): SR 672 and SR 724 in Culpeper County.

- The newer segment of US 340, between BUSINESS US 340 and US 211 West (southwest of Luray) has both full paved shoulders and a few "No Passing Zone" signs delinating the no passing zones. While neither is unheard of on Virginia highways, they're not exactly common either.

- Luray has what looked to be a relatively new bike/ped path running north-south through most of town, and generally following Hawksbill Creek. On this warm, sunny (albeit somewhat humid) day, it was getting a lot of use.

- At Overall (there's a place name for ya...ranks up there with "Thoroughfare" along VA 55), VDOT built a brand new bridge last year for US 340 crossing Overall Run. The old bridge, built ca. 1937 (don't remember the year on the plaque offhand) is still intact, complete with pavement markings, though the northern approach has been all but obliterated (the southern approach is part of the new access to SR 665). If that wasn't enough, there's a neat railroad trestle right next to (and sitting about 20 feet higher than) the two road bridges.

- And that's not all in Overall, as there's also a pair of "circle 340 shields" where SR 665 meets US 340.

- Just to the north in Bentonville is what looks to be a relatively new US 340 cutout shield.

- In eastern Shenandoah County, within range of Front Royal and sandwiched between two mountains (Green and Massanutten), lies the roughly-20-mile-long Fort Valley. There's only a small handful of ways in/out of the valley, all of which appear to involve either crossing mountains or threading through narrow, twisty, and somewhat steep gorges that creeks have cut through the mountains. Still, it was a very scenic drive.

- One of the above-mentioned mountain crossings...SR 675 across Massanutten Mountain...has a very awesome view looking out over Luray and part of the Page Valley (South Fork of the Shenandoah River).

A strange sight today...

Putzing around Prince William County today, I found something quite strange. SR 619, at least between I-95/Exit 150 and SR 646 near Independent Hill, has mileposts along the side of the road. The mileposts count down as you head northwest away from I-95 and are high enough to suggest that "Mile 0" is where SR 619 begins at US 29 in Gainesville.

This is the only time I've ever seen mileposts on a secondary route in Virginia. Heck, most of their primary and U.S. routes don't even have mileposts.

Unfortunately, it was drizzling/light rain out so I don't think I got a good photo. But I'll definately have to head back.

Kansas and Nebraska photo additions

Continuing my apparent recent trend of daily updates, I've added Kansas and Nebraska gallery pages tonight.

In Kansas, I've added 13 photos of KS 7 (K-7 for you nitpickers) between US 36 near Troy and Atchison.

In Nebraska, I've cleared out the rest of my Nebraska photos, adding 14 photos of US 20 between the Wyoming line and US 385 near Chadron.

Lastly, I took the I-480 Omaha photos off the default Nebraska page and gave them their own page, in a Simpleviewer format.

One thing I forgot...

For the transit hacks out there (especially those who like maps of fantasy transit systems), I've put my Fantasy Twin Cities system into a PDF format.

Webpage photo updates

The first of what I hope to be many blog posts about updates to my websites.

A few weeks ago, I uploaded the rest of my Wyoming photos, from the 2005 summer vacation Meaghan and I took out West. New pages were created for I-25, I-80, US 20, and WY 220. All were done in the Simpleviewer format I've started to use in recent months. My US 30 and US 287 pages were also updated to the Simpleviewer format. Lastly, I added the rest of my miscellaneous photos.

Over this past weekend, I did the same with my Utah photos from the same 2005 vacation. New pages were created for US 6 (from north of I-70 to UT 96), US 89 (Logan to Garden City), and the US 89/US 91 duplex. And the rest of my miscellaneous photos were also added.

Tonight, I updated two of my Minnesota photo pages. Added 1 eastbound and 4 westbound photos to the I-94 page, including new termini photos for both MN 100 and MN 252. The other updated page was the I-94/I-694 duplex page, with 9 westbound photos from the 2003-2005 widening project.

Way too long of a delay...

Feels weird being on here for the first time since Gustav. A lot's happened in the past six months...I transferred from Mississippi to the D.C. area...I'm trying to get a feel for the DC area and my new duty station (the Naval Ice Center), and I've seen Meaghan more times in the past 6 months than I did the whole time down in Mississippi.

But I think I'll start posting here on the blog more often. I'll also start using the blog to announce website updates, so stay tuned.