Category: Roads

  • Checkerboarding

    Checkerboarding has nothing to do with the game of checkers other than bearing a striking resemblance to its playing surface. Nor is it some awful new interrogation technique invented to pry information from suspects under duress. It is this. I discovered the anomaly on Google Maps in Oregon awhile ago while discussing Latitude Longitude Sequences…

  • Truckin’ Through California

    This has absolutely nothing to do with the Grateful Dead although they were indeed from California and noted for Truckin’. It is literally about trucks in California. However, feel free to listen to Truckin’ in the background if that would make you happy. So, it all started out more grandiosely. I recalled a particularly awful…

  • Just Keep Turning

    I think it’s time for another participatory article. The 12MC audience seems to its like little puzzles and challenges. I had to drive to a local shopping center a couple of miles from my home yesterday afternoon to pick up my wife. An Interstate Highway stood between the two locations, acting as a natural barrier,…

  • Where is Spider-Man Today?

    The newspaper version of the Amazing Spider-Man today (February 5, 2013) has Peter Parker attached to the back of a moving van, hitching a ride to San Francisco . He’s recently left Las Vegas, and he’s just passed a road sign that reads “San Francisco 237 miles.” Obviously Peter is riding along an Interstate Highway.…

  • How Low Can it Go?

    I stumble across the most fascinating bits of information in unexpected places. It happened this time as I examined the unusually-wide median strip between the eastbound and westbound lanes of Interstate 8 in southern California. Then I learned of a nearby oddity further down the highway while reviewing various roadfan websites. Interstate 8 A motorist…

  • Time Zone Boundary Craziness

    Please forgive me for another Time Zone article. I actually had another topic in mind so I’ll bump that one to make room for an unusual observation. Loyal reader David Overton commented on Making the Switch that the most recent Indiana time zone adjustment exacerbated an odd situation. Drivers traveling along a single 19 mile…

  • Making the Switch

    I learn the most amazing things as I delve into topics. For instance, thanks to Kansas Mountain Time, I now know how to change an area from one time zone to another should the need ever arise. The simplicity actually surprised me. It seemed much easier and less bureaucratic than I would ever imagine. Let’s…

  • Kansas Mountain Time

    Loyal reader Mr. Burns pointed out that my intended Dust Bowl route will traverse a psuedo-geo-oddity. I’ll move from Central Time to Mountain time while heading due north. That happens in other places sporadically, although not as rarely as moving east from Mountain Time into Pacific Time for example. One can’t be too choosy in…

  • Extreme Reservations

    It started out as it often does through a chance encounter with a roadmap anomaly. I happened to be examining a stretch of highway online. Then I spied an uncharacteristically wide split between the westbound and eastbound lanes of Interstate 84 directly outside of Pendleton, Oregon. It seemed quite remarkable. A mountain ridge forced opposing…

  • Frank Sinatra’s Drive

    As Ol’ Blue Eyes — Francis Albert “Frank” Sinatra — so famously sang: If I can make it there I’ll make it anywhere It’s up to you Hoboken, Hoboken Say what?!? Frank Sinatra arrived in this world in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1915, not New York City, and he lived his first couple of decades…