US Ends .com

^ date reposted to this blog Aug. 29, 2021: originally posted to my old blog Currently the longest single-state mileage of any US route is 893 miles ( US 83 in Texas). Historically, before US 101 was truncated to Los Angeles, that route was undoubtedly the record-holder: the California segment of US 101 was about 941 miles (give or take a few, depending on which year, since the alignment changed many times and in many places). Historic US 99 in California was the second-longest route through a single state, although its mileage is even more difficult to measure, since it was replaced by I-5 in many areas, and as a result some segments of the original route have been vacated. The Historic Highway 99 Association of California offers a length of 917 miles . Although that page does not specify a year, I am sure that figure is reliable, since my own back-of-the-envelope calculation yielded a similar distance. (Note that drivers choosing US 99E between Sacramento and Red Bluff had to...

^ date reposted to this blog Jul. 21, 2021: originally posted to my old blog The focal point of Blaine, Washington, is the Peace Arch international park and border crossing. Lots of interesting things to see there, including the north terminus of I-5 and the north terminus of historic US 99 . The photo below was taken looking east along the international boundary between Canada (to the left) and the U.S. (right). The large structure (with the flags on top) is the Peace Arch, which straddles the border. (It is not square to the boundary line; rather it is situated at a slight diagonal that roughly matches the angle of the roads that run through here.) If you look closely, you can see three boundary obelisks in the foreground:   Note the nearest obelisk (the one with a stone marker on its base) and the middle obelisk (the one that has "TREATY 1925" engraved on it). In the photo below, my camera was resting on top of that middle obelisk, but looking the opposite direction...

^ date reposted to this blog Jun. 25, 2021: originally posted to my old blog I am about to ask a simple question. It is not a trick question, so no reason to over-think it. The map below (like most maps) is oriented with north at the top. You might not be able to make out much detail, but that's ok, because all I want you to do is take a look at the highway shown in blue. And the question is simply this: does this highway run north-south? Or does it run east-west? Here is another way to ask the question: let's say you were to drive the blue route from the point on the left side to the point on the right. If you had to describe the general direction of your movement using only one of the following two words, which one would you choose: north or east ? Obviously the road is not perfectly straight, but I hope you can agree that the highway generally runs east-west. In case that is not plain to see, consider this data: the total distance along the blue line is about 60 m...

^ date reposted to this blog Jun. 17, 2021: originally posted to my old blog US 87 and US 287 converge in Dumas, Texas, and share about 49 miles of pavement down to Amarillo, where the two routes separate again. Before reaching their point of divergence, however, drivers on US 87-287 are directed through downtown Amarillo via surface streets. In hundreds of cities (or perhaps even thousands), US highway traffic bifurcates into one-way couplets (i.e. two separate streets, where the first carries one direction of traffic, and the second carries the opposite direction). In the U.S. we drive on the right side of the road, and opposing traffic is to the left. Because of that, in nearly every case where traffic bifurcates, the road carrying opposing traffic is one block to the driver's left (so that when traffic reconvenes onto the same road again, opposing directions of traffic have no need to cross each other). Amarillo is not unusual in the sense that its US highway traffic als...

^ date reposted to this blog Apr. 10, 2021: originally posted to my old blog Apr. 05, 2022: last updated One of San Angelo's marketing slogans is "The Oasis of West Texas". This is not hyperbole; most approaches to the city are somewhat stark, so upon arrival in Angelo, one may well be pleasantly surprised at all of the rivers, reservoirs, trees and other vegetation: One of the city's other monikers is "The Pearl of the Conchos", which has a double meaning, referring to the freshwater Concho pearls that were historically harvested from area waterways. The three branches of the Concho River all converge in San Angelo; that was illustrated on this other slogan from days gone by: On display at ASU's Mayer Museum, Jun. 2021 When the US highway system was inaugurated in late 1926, the only US route to initially serve San Angelo was US 385 (that is, the original US 385 , not the current US 385). The new designation was added to Texas State Highway 9: c. ...